Hong Kong’s Immigration Department reported on 1 March that its Assistance to Hong Kong Residents Unit had received 131 enquiries from citizens currently in the Middle East, mainly concerning flight options and personal safety after regional hostilities escalated. All callers indicated they were in safe locations, the department said.
Officers are maintaining contact with the travellers while liaising with China’s diplomatic missions, the Travel Industry Authority and local tour operators to track developments. Residents needing help can phone the 24-hour 1868 hotline via voice, WhatsApp or WeChat, or submit an online assistance form through the ImmD mobile app.
Corporations with employees on assignment in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar or Israel are urged to ensure staff have local SIM cards that permit data calls to the 1868 line. Employers should also remind personnel to register itineraries through the department’s “Registration of Outbound Travel Information” (ROTI) portal so that alerts reach them automatically.
![Immigration Department answers 131 calls from Hongkongers in Middle East, activates 1868 hotlines]()
Whether travellers are departing at short notice or re-routing through third countries, VisaHQ can help cut through red-tape. The firm’s Hong Kong platform (https://www.visahq.com/hong-kong/) consolidates real-time visa requirements for the Middle East and beyond and offers application processing and passport services that dovetail neatly with corporate duty-of-care programmes.
The incident is the first large-scale activation of ImmD’s multi-channel chatbot since its launch in 2024, and serves as a real-time test of Hong Kong’s consular-assistance upgrade programme. Case managers can now push location-based SMS updates to registrants if evacuation flights become necessary.
Although no evacuation is currently planned, the Security Bureau continues to advise against all travel to Israel and Iran under its highest (black) Outbound Travel Alert. Should the alert widen to neighbouring states, mandatory employer duty-of-care obligations—such as extraction planning and mental-health support—will come into sharper focus.
Officers are maintaining contact with the travellers while liaising with China’s diplomatic missions, the Travel Industry Authority and local tour operators to track developments. Residents needing help can phone the 24-hour 1868 hotline via voice, WhatsApp or WeChat, or submit an online assistance form through the ImmD mobile app.
Corporations with employees on assignment in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar or Israel are urged to ensure staff have local SIM cards that permit data calls to the 1868 line. Employers should also remind personnel to register itineraries through the department’s “Registration of Outbound Travel Information” (ROTI) portal so that alerts reach them automatically.
Whether travellers are departing at short notice or re-routing through third countries, VisaHQ can help cut through red-tape. The firm’s Hong Kong platform (https://www.visahq.com/hong-kong/) consolidates real-time visa requirements for the Middle East and beyond and offers application processing and passport services that dovetail neatly with corporate duty-of-care programmes.
The incident is the first large-scale activation of ImmD’s multi-channel chatbot since its launch in 2024, and serves as a real-time test of Hong Kong’s consular-assistance upgrade programme. Case managers can now push location-based SMS updates to registrants if evacuation flights become necessary.
Although no evacuation is currently planned, the Security Bureau continues to advise against all travel to Israel and Iran under its highest (black) Outbound Travel Alert. Should the alert widen to neighbouring states, mandatory employer duty-of-care obligations—such as extraction planning and mental-health support—will come into sharper focus.
