Skift Take
A reopening with mainland China would be a lifeboat for Hong Kong's beleaguered tourism industry. Talks seem to be escalating but hopes are kept in check as vaccine hesitancy for now serves as a real bummer for recovery.
Bubble weariness has set in for Hong Kong's tourism industry. After a second postponement of a travel corridor with Singapore recently, businesses are skeptical that plans to restart cross-border travel with mainland China will happen soon. Deep down, however, they fervently hope it will.
The South China Morning Post reported on Friday that borders between Hong Kong and mainland China could reopen for quarantine-free travel as early as next month, likely with neighboring Guangdong for business travel first, then other market segments.
Guangdong is China's richest province with the highest gross domestic product in the mainland for 32 years consecutively. Its nine cities, among them Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Zhuhai, are part of the greater bay area. The area, which also counts Macau and Hong Kong, has more than 72 million people.
Details being considered include the number of cities in Guangdong in the pilot, if there should be a daily quota, and the length of a visit, said the report, citing a mainland official with knowledge of border-reopening discussions.
On the Hong Kong side, for a month now chief executive Carrie Lam has also intoxicated the industry about a “Come2HK” scheme that allows mainland Chinese who test negative for Covid-19 to visit Hong Kong without a quarantine. They may, however, still be subject to quarantine upon return if China decides so. Early last week, Lam said she would “press ahead” with discussions since the Covid situation in Hong Kong and China “has been stabilized.”
Mainland Chinese were 79 percent of Hong Kong's arrivals in 2019. This wellspring of visitors has dripped to just 15,717 in the first four months, a bruising decline of 99.4 percent. A restart of any sort will jumpstart Hong Kong's tourism recovery by leaps and bounds.
Hong Kong tourism players look wistfully to Macau, which has quarantine-free travel with China, and wonder when its turn
