HONG KONG – Over the past three years, Hong Kong resident Zhou Wanhui has only visited her parents in China three times. Although they live just two hours apart by train, Covid restrictions make it so difficult to cross the Hong Kong border into mainland China that one of Ms. Chu’s trips included an extended flight. three hours to Shanghai and nearly a month of quarantine in two cities.
Families like Ms. Zhou’s – separated by weddings and funerals, birthdays and graduations – are finally preparing for less arduous reunions.
On Sunday, China fully opened its borders for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began, welcome travelers have no strict quarantine requirements and allow their citizens to go abroad again as soon as the Lunar New Year travel period, usually the busiest, begins. At Hong Kong airport, hundreds of people wait for check-in flights to cities to the south like Xiamen and Chongqing and to the north like Beijing and Tianjin, but the arrival hall is quieter. Many of the city’s border checkpoints have been reopened; Empty shipping halls filled with groups of people, and shuttered stores reopened.
Ms. Zhou, 22, a university student, texted her parents that she planned to go home for the Lunar New Year on January 22. “Wow, that’s good news! Borders are finally open,” her parents wrote back with a like emoji line.
But uncomfortable, from both visitors and countries with long wait to welcome Chinese tourists abundantly once again, has softened the celebratory mood.
Like China fast lifting Covid restrictions, a violent outbreak has ravaged the country in recent weeks, causing chaos in the hospital and put pressure on medical staff. Beijing’s decision, announced less than two weeks ago, to open its borders has surprised, confused and wary of many.
“It was too sudden,” Jenny Zhao, 34, said, referring to China’s swift reversal of its Covid-19 policies. Ms. Zhao, a marketing manager, has lived in Singapore for the past year. She found herself stranded abroad with near-impossible barriers to returning home in China last year and decided to stay after finding a job at an international company.
Now, with infections spreading in China, Ms. Zhao isn’t sure if she’s ready to go back.
“All of my family members, including my 88-year-old grandmother, have contracted Covid,” Ms. Zhao said. Her mother told her that everyone in their 3,000 apartment block in the southern city of Chongqing appeared to have the virus.
Instead of going there for the Lunar New Year, Ms. Zhao decided to wait until the summer to see her family. She hopes that by then, the current spike in Covid-19 numbers will be reduced, restrictions on Chinese travelers going abroad will be eased, and airfares will be cheaper. Ms. Zhao said she plans to then take her parents on a trip to Thailand.
Countries around the world are eagerly welcoming the return of Chinese tourists like Ms. Zhao and her parents. Before the pandemic, Chinese tourists spent $250 billion a year abroad. Their sudden disappearance in early 2020, when China suspended tour groups and tour packages, sent many tour guides and tour operators into bankruptcy. The impact is felt acutely in places like Thailand, Japan and South Korea.
However, some countries are also hesitating between attracting Chinese tourists and health experts’ concerns about the epidemic. level about China’s Covid outbreak, the potential for new mutations of the coronavirus, and possible strains that sick travelers may contract across healthcare systems.
Find out the situation in China
The Chinese government has scrapped its “no Covid” restrictive policy, which has sparked mass protests and is a rare challenge to the Communist Party’s leadership.
Global health experts and the World Health Organization have warned that the outbreak in China and transparency of the country in the reported cases, made it difficult to assess the severity of the situation.
In recent days, dozens of countries around the world have begun to require Covid testing and health monitoring for visitors from China. It’s a rebuke reminder from Beijing, which has argued that the moves have no scientific basis.
The European Union on Wednesday said “strongly recommendedIts 27 members will issue testing and masking requirements as Chinese tourists begin returning to popular European cities.
Even Hong Kong, where the government imposed many of the same border restrictions as China until a few months ago, has taken a cautious approach to opening its borders to the mainland, limiting the number of visitors to the mainland. 60,000 people per day. This rule will also apply to Hong Kong visitors traveling north. Anyone entering either side of the border must present a negative PCR test.
On Jeju Island, a South Korean destination once popular with Chinese tourists, many businesses are on wait-and-see mode. The government has halted all direct flights from China to the island, redirecting visitors to the country’s main airport in Seoul, where visitors will have to take a PCR test on arrival and quarantine if detected. sick.
“We are focusing on alternative markets for the time being, such as Japan and Southeast Asia,” said Kim Chang-hyo, an official with the Jeju Island Tourism Association. South Korea has also stopped processing short-term visas for Chinese nationals, except for diplomatic or business visits.
Thailand’s response was more friendly. A government minister has floated the idea of providing booster vaccines to Chinese tourists. Another urged Thais not to “bully“Chinese tourists based on unfounded fears about Covid.
But the Thai government is also taking measures to prevent its hospital system from being overwhelmed by a sudden outbreak as the Chinese border has opened. All visitors to the country must get two shots of the Covid vaccine, and the government has recommended wearing masks in public. Travelers must also have health insurance to cover Covid treatment if they become ill.
Yuthasak Supasorn, governor of the country’s Tourism Authority, said that Thailand is expected to welcome around 300,000 Chinese tourists in the first three months of 2023. He said: “There are only 15 flights per week compared to before Covid, where there are about 400 flights per week. Before the pandemic, nearly a million Chinese tourists visited each month.
At the Maetaeng elephant park in Thailand’s northern Chiang Mai province, staff said they were delighted to see Chinese tourists return. For now, however, they are busy with Koreans, who have largely replaced the Chinese as their biggest customers.
“It’s all still to be seen,” said Thipsuda Poungmalee, director of sales and marketing at the park.
In Osaka, Japan, where Chinese tourists sometimes report on what the Japanese call “bakugai” – or explosive purchases – optimism has also been muted. “Of course, it’s much quieter without tourists from China, the city is also less vibrant,” said Makoto Tsuda, an official with Osaka’s tourism promotion office. Before the pandemic, nearly half of foreign visitors to the city came from China, he said.
Japan is requiring travelers from China to provide a negative PCR test prior to arrival and take another test upon their arrival. Mr. Tsuda said he hopes to see more visitors from China, but perhaps not immediately.
“I really think there’s an extra barrier compared to visitors from other countries, so maybe the arrival of tourists from China won’t be sudden, it will be more gradual,” Mr. Tsuda said.
Among those present at Hong Kong’s international airport on Sunday was Yan Yan, a 55-year-old garment wholesaler who was with her husband from South Carolina.
They waited patiently to check their luggage on the Xiamen Airlines flight to Tianjin as the line at the packed departure hall inched forward.
She often visits her parents in Tianjin every year. But this will be her first time going home since the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Limited flights and sudden cancellations, not to mention quarantines and complicated PCR testing, have left her he’s frustrated until now. One of her friends flew back to China and spent the entire trip between quarantine facilities.
“Now that the restrictions have been eased, things are much better,” she said, adding that she was relieved to see her loved ones again after they had recovered from their hardships. of Covid a few weeks ago.
“It will be a great new year to be with family.”
Report contributed by hikari hida, Muktita Suhartono andJohn Yoon.
