Hong Kong’s scrapping of mandatory hotel quarantine means little for mainland China travellers
- Those arriving in the mainland still face a week of centralised quarantine
- Mainland stopped issuing ‘exit-entry permits’ for HK travel in January 2020
While local and foreign travellers celebrate the scrapping of mandatory hotel quarantine rules in Hong Kong, people from mainland China hoping to travel via the city share little of the excitement.
“This still doesn’t change the fact that you have to be quarantined on the mainland,” Ariel, who is working in the United States, said. “Hong Kong loosening up has nothing to do with the mainland following suit.”
She said her hopes that mainland China would scrap quarantine had not risen, and she had no plans to visit her family any time soon.
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Any traveller arriving in mainland China and or Macau is still subjected to a “7 + 3” policy: a week of centralised quarantine followed by three days of home observation.
Hong Kong was previously an international travel hub, especially for long-haul flights between mainland China and the rest of the world. While its strict border control policies – which most recently included three days of mandatory hotel quarantine – have deterred travellers in the past two years, the city was still seen as one of the more popular routes for entering and exiting mainland China given the limited flight routes available.
According to the latest numbers from the Hong Kong Tourism Board, 40,083 travellers from mainland China arrived in July, up 535.8 per cent year on year, but it is still way below pre-pandemic times. There were nearly 5.2 million mainland arrivals in July 2019.
Amy Zhao, who works as a marketing executive at an American company in Shanghai, said the latest Hong Kong plan “does not benefit any ordinary people in the mainland”.
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Mainland authorities stopped issuing “exit-entry permits” for mainland residents wanting to go to Hong Kong in late January 2020, and have yet to announce any resumption of the arrangement. Because of the need to control the pandemic, travel by mainland residents to Hong Kong is “not recommended” unless they have “special or urgent needs”, according to the Chinese government’s website.
Only certain business travellers and students have been able to receive the documents needed for travelling between Hong Kong and the mainland.
“If you are not classified as a person who needs to make ‘essential travel’ to Hong Kong, it won’t help that Hong Kong does not require quarantine now,” Zhao said. “We are still stuck for any kind of travelling.”
She was denied a permit for a business trip to Hong Kong last month.
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However, Rosa Fu, who lives in Britain with her husband and son, said Hong Kong’s latest policy could be an option for arranging a trip home to Hunan province.
“I just hope the price of [flight] tickets can go down,” the 30-year-old said. “I want to take my family back home but I’m still worried about a potential policy change if I book tickets too early.”
Apart from air travel, there is currently a 1,500-a-day quota – decided by lottery – for Hong Kong arrivals in quarantine facilities in neighbouring Shenzhen.
Fu said she had considered going home via Hong Kong and crossing the border to Shenzhen, but “the quota is too hard to get”.
Additional reporting by Liu Zhen
