Hong Kong singles more open to dating foreigners than Singaporeans and Malaysians, but lag behind Thais
- Online survey of singles in five locations found 60 per cent of Hongkongers are open to dating foreigners, but Thais topped the list with 80 per cent
- Digital tools are popular with Asians looking for love, and more than half prioritise values over looks
Hong Kong singles are more open to dating foreigners than their counterparts elsewhere in Southeast Asia, a reflection of the international nature of the city.
For six consecutive years a wide-ranging dating survey has found a relatively stable proportion of Hong Kong singles (about 60 per cent) are open to dating foreigners. This percentage is higher than the proportion of singles in Singapore and Malaysia similarly willing to date people from a different nation, while Thailand ranked top, with about eight in 10 Thai singles open to dating foreigners.
“Hong Kong is a cosmopolitan city. Compared with Singapore and Malaysia, there are more expats working in Hong Kong,” says Violet Lim, CEO and co-founder of Lunch Actually, the Singapore-based multinational dating company that conducts the survey. “That’s why Hong Kong offers more chances to meet foreigners, and people are more willing to open up to them.”
This year, Lunch Actually surveyed more than 2,800 single respondents online, aged from 21 to 51 years old, from five southeast Asian countries: Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.
Meeting a potential partner through friends is one of the most popular ways of finding a date in Hong Kong (50 per cent of 450 people surveyed), Malaysia (40 per cent of 360 respondents), and Indonesia (53 per cent of 450 singles). Most of the Thai singles (44 per cent of 1,000 people), by contrast, say they believe faith and destiny will take them to their partners.