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PostMagTravel
Mercedes Hutton
Mercedes Hutton

Destinations known | Can the expected travel bubble burst Hong Kong and Singapore’s supposed rivalry?

  • With an air travel agreement expected within weeks, interest in each destination has spiked but not everyone is satisfied
  • The competition between the two Asian financial powerhouses must now adapt to account for Hong Kong’s new national security law

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People take photos at Merlion Park in Singapore, on October 14. Photo: EPA-EFE
Mercedes Hutton

If you believe everything you read, Hong Kong and Singapore have long enjoyed a healthy rivalry, battling it out for financial supremacy in Asia. In February, The Financial Times reported that Covid-19 had introduced a new dimension to the struggle, “their ability to deal with epidemics”. To date, Hong Kong has the edge in terms of total cases, with about 5,200 to the Lion City’s almost 60,000, but Singapore is doing better when it comes to fatalities, recording just 28, compared with 105 in the SAR.

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But now, the pandemic promises to bring the two competitors closer, thanks to an “in-principle agreement to establish a bilateral air travel bubble (ATB)”, according to a release issued by both governments on October 15. Under the arrangement, travellers “will be subject to mutually recognised Covid-19 polymerase chain reaction [PCR] tests and would need to have negative results” before arriving at either destination on “dedicated flights” with no transit passengers or “non-ATB travellers” on board. With these safeguards in place, no quarantine or self-isolation will be required at either end.

Although no date has been given for the launch of the ATB, Hong Kong’s secretary for commerce and economic development, Edward Yau Tang-wah, said he had “every confidence that the ATB arrangement can come to fruition very soon”.

Travel-starved Hongkongers quickly dropped any sense of superiority over the Southeast Asian city state, with Expedia recording a 400 per cent increase in search­es for flights to Singapore. Singaporeans are almost as excited about the prospect of a Hong Kong getaway – Expedia saw an increase of almost 380 per cent in searches for flights from Singapore to Hong Kong in the first 24 hours after the announcement – and prices for round-trip tickets have risen in both cities.

Speaking to the South China Morning Post, Expedia Group’s senior director of Asia government and corporate affairs, Ang Choo Pin, said, “Singapore has consistently remained one of the top 10 destinations among Hong Kong travellers over the years”. In 2018, 470,000 Hongkongers visited the Lion City. That same year, almost 611,000 Singaporeans graced the Fragrant Harbour with their presence, although the number was lower in 2019, when street protests deterred tourists from coming to Hong Kong.
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