Skift Take
The vaccine rollout is fueling optimism among Asia-Pacific’s travelers and the region’s travel industry. But until inoculations are widespread and the right systems for recognizing official health documents are in place globally, extra layers of protection — such as testing — remain key to traveler health and safety.
While fluctuating Covid-19 cases continue to stall the restart of global travel — including the Hong Kong-Singapore travel bubble and travel plans for the upcoming Lunar New Year — the impending wide-reaching rollout of vaccines has brought a much needed dose of hope to travelers and the travel industry for 2021.
In its December 2020 forecast, The Asian Development Bank predicted that economic activity in Asia-Pacific will expand by 6.8 percent in 2021, contingent on vaccine development and execution. Additionally, in November 2020, Moody's Analytics chief APAC economist, Steve Cochrane, stated that Asia-Pacific is leading the global recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, though a full economic recovery will only take place when the vaccine is widely available and international travel and tourism returns.
While domestic travel appears to be faring well in the region, international air travel continues to face challenges. Todd Handcock, president of Collinson Asia-Pacific, a global leader in travel risk management and medical assistance, and owner and operator of Priority Pass, says: “When looking at our Asia-Pacific lounge visit data for May to December 2020, 75 percent of visits were domestic, and the remaining 25 percent international. When we compare this to the same period in 2019, domestic made up just 13 percent of our region’s total lounge visits.”
He explained that though overall figures are down year-over-year, certain domestic travel markets in Asia-Pacfic appear to have weathered the Covid-19 storm relatively well. “Countries such as Vietnam and Thailand — where Covid-19 cases have remained relatively low and domestic destinations are plentiful — have reported 2020 domestic lounge visit rates comparative to 96.8 percent and 82.7 percent of the previous year’s visit rates, for May through to December,” he said.
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