Since 2019, the Swire Properties Placemaking Academy (“SPPA”) has provided Hong Kong university students with the opportunity to design, plan, and execute our annual year-end community celebration – the White Christmas Street Fair. SPPA is a crucial part of our placemaking efforts, empowering Hong Kong’s youth to build vibrant and sustainable local communities.

In 2024, 10 university students took part in a six-month apprenticeship, participating in a series of masterclasses and mentorship sessions with industry leaders and members of Swire Properties’ management team as they planned this year’s fair. This year also marked the second cohort of the Swire Properties Junior Programme, featuring secondary school students selected through the Eastern District Office’s E-League programme. Four secondary school students received “mini-mentorships” from professional emcees to prepare for their roles as emcees at the White Christmas Street Fair.

To enhance our understanding of the social value generated by the SPPA programme in 2024, we conducted a pilot study in collaboration with the University of Hong Kong to assess and quantify the social impact of the SPPA programme. The study utilised three key models for evaluating social impact: (1) the micro-meso-macro model, which examines the impact at various societal levels; (2) the Theory of Change (ToC) model, which delineates the programme's intended outcomes; and (3) the Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice (KAP) model, which assesses changes in participants' skills, perceptions, and behaviours.

The study comprised two components: an impact evaluation of the SPPA on alumni from 2019 to 2023 and a separate evaluation of the SPPA 2024 cohort of university students. The research team collected data and feedback through focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, and surveys from SPPA alumni, current SPPA participants, as well as Swire Properties programme staff, mentors, and external stakeholders. Concurrently, the research team helped develop the programme’s logic model and articulate the input, activities, output, and intended outcomes in terms of social returns to inform the evaluation approach.

The evaluation results for the 49 SPPA alumni revealed a positive impact on various outcomes related to knowledge and professional advancement, innovation and creativity, community and social engagement, and personal growth and development of the alumni. For example,

For the SPPA 2024 cohort, we were able to deepen the evaluation by comparing the pre-intervention scores with those taken six months later. The evaluation showed a positive impact across the board on aspects of knowledge and professional advancement, personal growth and development, and community engagement, with a significant increase in confidence regarding future career prospects.

For the first time, with the support of the University of Hong Kong, we established a monetisation framework to quantify the social value created for SPPA participants and the broader community by considering the following categories of social returns:

Since 2019, we have estimated that the SPPA programme has created a social value of over HKD60 million for programme participants and the wider community. These study outcomes will guide us in developing an appropriate methodology for measuring the social impact of our community engagement initiatives.

The 2024 White Christmas Street Fair, themed “CampUnity, Christmas Campsite X Community at Taikoo Place”, was completely designed and run by the 10 university students in this year’s SPPA cohort, with four secondary school students from the SPPA’s Junior Programme becoming the fair’s emcees.

The celebration was extended to the greater Taikoo community this year, and included the newly opened Taikoo Square, Quarryside and Taikoo Park. The fair transformed Taikoo Place into a huge “campsite”, filled with festive activities and exciting experiences. Alongside 41 retail and F&B booths, there were themed attractions including an open-air cinema showing classic Christmas films, campfires dotted around the venue with electricity-generated flame effects, interactive fire dances at Taikoo Square and a host of live performances and workshops covering everything from handicrafts to fitness and urban sketching. Quarryside was transformed into “Little Paws Xmas Town”, hosting a pet-friendly Christmas celebration with pet-themed shopping booths and interactive activities.

By increasing the number of locations, the fair expanded its reach and recorded a total of more than 82,000 visits, helping the company raise over HKD one million for Operation Santa Claus in 2024, bringing the total amount raised over the past 12 years to over HKD10 million.

In 2022, the Hong Kong Palace Museum (“HKPM”) launched the Bi-city Youth Cultural Leadership Programme, a flagship youth learning initiative designed to promote Chinese culture and foster cultural exchange, with Swire Properties as the lead sponsor. The programme has received enthusiastic participation from university students in Hong Kong and Beijing – igniting their creativity, broadening their horizons and nurturing the next generation of cultural talent.

In 2024, the third edition of the programme, themed “The Future of Cultural Ecosystems”, saw 16 students come together for a two-month exchange programme featuring field trips, masterclasses and internships in Hong Kong, Beijing and Chengdu, a newly-added study destination. The students explored topics such as the creative economy, cultural heritage and innovation.

During their four-week internship in Hong Kong, two students interned at Swire Properties, working on a proposal to redesign the Taikoo Place Artwalk. Other students worked at arts and cultural institutions including HKPM, the M+ Museum, the West Kowloon Cultural District Performing Arts Division and four museums managed by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department.

In Chengdu, the students visited Taikoo Li Chengdu and participated in a panel talk on “Tradition and Future: The Modernisation and Localisation of Cultural Legacy”, learning about how the Company has incorporated heritage preservation, art and culture into our development design and placemaking efforts for the project. In Beijing, the students visited Taikoo Li Sanlitun, enjoyed an exclusive tour of the Palace Museum and took part in a sharing session on what they had learned.

The programme has now provided leadership training to nearly 130 university students, and applications for the fourth edition will be accepted in early 2025.

October marked Swire Properties’ 15th consecutive year supporting the Chinese Mainland’s preeminent musical mega-event, the Beijing Music Festival (“BMF”). This year’s festival once again promoted cultural exchange and global discourse on music, with 10 concerts and musical charity events across an eclectic range of genres, united by the theme “Voices from Afar”.

As the event’s strategic partner, we also supported outstanding students and two school orchestras from a primary and a high school adjacent to our Beijing developments, allowing them to practise, perform and learn from BMF’s guest musicians in the hopes of inspiring them to pursue their musical interests further.

Our work with the BMF underscores our commitment to placemaking and to making arts and culture a part of everyday life. We hope to bring even more innovative art experiences to the community to help the city’s talented youth expand their cultural horizons.