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As mainland China prepares to lift its Covid-19 travel restrictions from January 8, Hong Kong, one of the most popular destinations for Chinese tourists, is both anxiously awaiting an influx of visitors.
In the year Of the 154 million Chinese outbound travelers in 2019 before the outbreak of Covid-19, more than a third – 36 percent – came to Hong Kong, according to statistics from the World Bank and the Hong Kong Tourism Board. The special administrative region is a popular travel destination due to its proximity, famous Cantonese cuisine and abundant shopping.
“There will be a lot of mainlanders coming to Hong Kong. Some come for family reunification, forced by the epidemic prevention restrictions of the past three years. Others come for tourism,” Cloris said. Yip, a Hong Kong-based travel agency. “It will be good for Hong Kong. The last three years have been very difficult for Hong Kong’s travel industry.”
Chinese officials announced Monday that it will no longer require a detention for incoming travelers from January 8 and will begin accepting applications from Chinese nationals for overseas passports and travel permits to Hong Kong and Macau. On Tuesday, Chief Executive John Lee announced that Hong Kong would finally fully reopen from Wednesday, ending some of the world’s toughest Covid-19 measures.
Lee said Hong Kong will scrap mandatory PCR tests for incoming travelers, a vaccination pass-through scheme, quarantine requirements for close contacts and social distancing measures.
“Visitors from overseas, the mainland, Macau and Taiwan do not need to undergo mandatory PCR tests upon arrival in Hong Kong,” Li said.
In late September, the government lifted earlier quarantine requirements for immigrants. The only measure left is the mask prescription.
The move is expected to bring in much-needed Chinese tourism during the Lunar New Year holiday starting next month.
Before the outbreak, tourism accounted for 4.5 percent of Hong Kong’s gross domestic product and employed about 257,000 people, accounting for 6.6 percent of total employment, according to government figures. In the year In 2018, 78% – 51 million – of the 65 million tourists who visited Hong Kong were from the main provinces.
“The travel industry is delighted with this long-awaited news,” the Hong Kong Travel Industry Council said in a statement. “The new measures will restore orderly exchanges between Hong Kong and other places, so that various stakeholders such as travel agencies, hotels, cross-border buses or airlines can see the light of day after years of difficulties, and the tourism industry, which has been affected by the epidemic for three years, will be able to see the light of day.” Recovery can be delayed.
Businesses outside of Chinese tourism have collapsed or declined. To make ends meet, Yip and other travel agents had to do low-paying government-sponsored jobs like checking IDs and maintaining order at vaccination centers.
“Many travel agencies are no longer in business. Some people have changed jobs, Covid has made the whole travel industry very nervous,” Yip said.
That’s why many travel agencies, hotels, retailers and others welcome people like Elaine Zhao and her boyfriend who plan to visit Hong Kong in January and don’t need to waste time and money on reservations. their return.
A senior college high school in northeastern China’s Shenyang city has spent the past year and a half on a closed campus. Because of one positive case, she was confined to a dormitory she shared with three roommates for two weeks in November.
“We felt very claustrophobic. All we could do was stay in the room. The only place we could go was the toilet. We couldn’t even take a shower,” Zhao said.
She is used to going abroad once or twice a year, she is very eager to travel again.
“We’ve been stuck here for the past three years, and it’s been a long time since we’ve come out to play,” Zhao said. “I really want to go to Macau. I’ve never been before. Then I’m going to Hong Kong, which is a place that a lot of young people want to visit because it has this image of being very rich and it’s different. It’s the mainland.”
She and her boyfriend wait in long lines when applying for a visit permit.
“Many people have had a positive reaction in Shenyang, but they get better within a week or two. It’s like the flu. No one is afraid. Everyone wants to get out,” she said.
Mainland students studying in Hong Kong also welcomed China’s lifting of COVID-19 measures.
“I’m very happy because every time I go home, I have to spend a lot of money on quarantine hotels and PCR tests,” Eric Jiang said.
The hotel he was staying at tried to keep him and other guests longer than the required five days by charging him extra money.
“They only allowed us after we complained to the government office,” Jiang said. “Now that quarantine requirements have been lifted, I can easily visit my parents and grandparents.”
Caution and concern
Some Hong Kong residents, however, are waiting for the latest outbreak of COVID-19 on the mainland to subside before visiting. Infections have surged since China eased many of its Covid-19 controls on December 7.
“There’s no way I’m going to the mainland now,” said Samuel Lau, a stockbroker who crosses the border four times a month to meet and see his clients. “It will be a month or two before I leave.”
But Lau is looking forward to visiting the mainland again.
“I like to go there because it’s growing fast. It’s no use hearing people talk about China’s changes. I like to see the infrastructure and the development of cities from poverty to prosperity for myself. I want to understand how many countries have been able to do what they haven’t been able to do,” Lau said.
He also wants to use an app on his smartphone to rent an off-road electric car.
But there are concerns that cases of COVID-19 could arise amid an influx of Chinese tourists to Hong Kong, putting pressure on hospitals in the area due to the recent surge in Covid-19 and winter flu infections.
Others worry that mainland tourists will buy all the drugs from drug stores and pay large sums of money to private clinics for foreign vaccinations, which are not available to Chinese citizens on the mainland.
Hong Kong is ready for business, the official said.
Chief Executive Lee confirmed that Hong Kong is ready to reopen to the public, citing high vaccination rates, an adequate supply of anti-epidemic drugs and fully trained medical staff. He also mentioned that 2.5 million people have developed immunity in the past.
Unlike Japan, India and Taiwan, Hong Kong does not require visitors from mainland countries to produce a negative PCR test result after arriving in the city, despite the risk of new deadly strains developing in China and spreading to Hong Kong.
Other travelers to Hong Kong are only required to submit negative results from PCR tests conducted within 48 hours or rapid antigen tests (RAT) within 24 hours of departure to Hong Kong.
Hong Kong virologist Professor Jin Dong-yan said in mid-December that “nothing is impossible, but it is very, very low probability because the virus has already turned into a mild form.”
Opening up Hong Kong’s borders makes sense for people like Yip.
Last year, tourist arrivals dropped to 91,000. They took in about 328,000 this year — after the Hong Kong government shortened and later lifted quarantines for new arrivals — but they’re still a fraction of what they used to be.
“Hong Kong has to float up. We have to go the same way as the rest of the world,” Yip said.
But the recovery of the tourism industry will take a long time, the Travel Industry Council said, adding that it will take a long time to return to pre-pandemic levels.
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