The new college graduate is among scores of travel-hungry residents desperate to jump on a flight after being marooned in Hong Kong since 2020 owing to some of the world’s strictest Covid curbs – including a now-scrapped three-week quarantine for anyone returning to the city from abroad.
“I had always wanted to travel but didn’t want to quarantine too long,” said the 21-year-old Cheng, who is starting a new job once she returns from her planned trip to South Korea. “It got more attractive when it was cut to three days.”
For most of the pandemic, a place billed as Asia’s World City was effectively shut off from the world by harsh travel restrictions, including temporary flight bans from nine countries that shrank movement in and out of Hong Kong to a trickle.
The city was one of the busiest flight hubs internationally before the pandemic with tens of millions passing through its main airport annually. Nearly 56 million people visited the territory in 2019.
Hong Kong’s hotel quarantine – which has been cut in recent months after a Covid-19 surge earlier this year – has been regularly criticised over its high costs and challenges in securing rooms. Industry groups complained that it effectively stopped business travel.
Last month, Hong Kong announced that the much-loathed quarantine would be cut to just three days, with four days of self-isolation and restrictions on visiting certain venues.
While most places outside mainland China have ditched quarantines and other curbs altogether, Hong Kong’s easing has stoked a surge in demand for flights and travel bookings.
There has been a marked rise in passenger and other flights after Hong Kong’s flagship carrier Cathay Pacific saw passenger movement shrink to just 2% of capacity during the health crisis. The airline is now hiring more than 4,000 frontline employees over the next two years as travel demand rebounds.
Flights departing Hong Kong are expected to top 2,600 by October, twice that of July before the latest easing of Covid curbs was announced, according to aviation data provider Cirium.
Local tour agency Sunflower Travel has seen a surge of interest from Hong Kongers, though traffic remains well below pre-pandemic levels.
“Since the government announced [shorter quarantines], inquiries about overseas travel packages have grown significantly,” said Moon Yau, Sunflower’s assistant general manager. “Most of them are interested in going to Southeast Asian countries in September, and some have already made bookings.”
Across Southeast Asia, hotel and travel operators are offering deep discounts and other incentives to bring back tourists.
Some of Hong Kong’s pandemic-weary travellers are even treating the shortened quarantine as part of their vacation.
“It’s like a bonus ‘staycation’ that they can add to the end of their trip,” Yau said. “People are asking and preparing [to travel], but the biggest concern is restrictions. There’s still a chance that you could test positive after the trip and not be able to come back.”
The rule changes are also prompting Hong Kong residents stranded abroad to return, even though quarantine hotel bookings have fallen overall, according to Girish Jhunjhnuwala, executive chairman of boutique hotel Ovolo Group.
“People will make bookings closer to a time or when they’re returning to Hong Kong,” he said.
Local media have reported that Hong Kong might scrap its quarantine by November as the city gears up for a banking summit and the Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament, which is set to kick off after years of pandemic-linked delays.
And the city’s international airport has just held a trial run to prepare for a passenger surge, boosting speculation that more openings were around the corner.
Clara Chan and her husband, who used to travel outside Hong Kong five or six times a year, say they are going to tough it out until the city is quarantine-free. But Chan has a bundle of yen saved up for a trip to Japan as soon as it happens.
“We are not too worried about the ticket prices since it is very cheap to go to Japan now,” she said. “For people like us, it’s so painful not to travel.”