China Tourism Research Institute predict the country’s domestic travel during the May Day Holiday will recover more or less to pre-pandemic level. During the Ching Ming Festival earlier this month, there were 102 million domestic travelers which about 95% that of pre-pandemic.

On April 13, Singapore Transport Minister confirm finalizing details of revised agreement with Hong Kong, and expressed hope to announce the plan soon.

As talk with authority on covid-19 prevention making progress, Hong Kong travel agents are talking about relaunching local package tours, each of which with maximum 30 tourists, in early May.

According to the CE, Hong Kong by international standard now rank among the low risk areas. In the past 14 days and on a 7-days moving average, there daily are 2 locally infected cases and among them a daily average of 0.7 case of unknown source. Currently, there are 125 Covid-19 patients in hospitals and 90% of them with stable conditions. The fourth pandemic wave since November last year now very much under control.

In a press conference on April 12, Hong Kong CE announced visitor quarantine to be eased with some start being effective in this month:
a. At the end of April, for Hong Kong Residents Returning from Guangdong Province under the Return2hk Scheme will be expanded to other mainland provinces and cities to be exempted from the 14-day compulsory quarantine requirement;
b. By mid-May, mainlanders and people in mainland China can enjoy quarantine free entry to the city; this apply to all type of travelers but subject to quota;
c. Quarantine period for vaccinated travelers from low risk countries will be shortened to 7 days or less;
d. Quarantine period for vaccinated travelers from medium risk countries will be shortened to 7 days or less;
e. Vaccinated Hong Kong citizens can travel to destinations with Travel Bubble Arrangement, or enjoy shorter or quarantine free entry provided unilaterally by some destinations.

An Alliance of Hong Kong travel agents interviewed last week over 2000 citizens and found over 90% citizens hope to take overseas holiday.

Singaporean Foreign Minister said to have spent consideration time with China’s Foreign Minister in meeting on March 31, and told media travel between the two countries, which are working out a system to mutually recognize each other’s health certification, may soon resume.

From November last year to January this year, an US bank interviewed by phone over 4000 Hong Kong citizens aged between 21 and 79. The survey found there are some 515,000 citizens or 28.7% of the population with net worth at or over HK$10 million.

Among these multi-millionaires, 25% report an increase in their liquid asset comparing to the end of year 2019. The median increase was 1 million. 65% of them cited better investment return as reason for the increase.

Spokesman of China Foreign Ministry told reporters on April 6 that China and South Korea will liaise on setting up a mechanism to mutually recognize health code

Quoting an analyst, Reuters reported on April 5 in a piece about reopening border to tourists that Maldives seen hotel occupancy rates bounce back to 70 to 80% despite cases of the virus.

Reuters reported Thai government wants at least 100,000 tourists to visit Phuket in the third quarter, and the whole nation drawing some 6.5 million visitors by the end of this year who will have spent 350 billion baht.

The city had 29 local infected cases in the past two weeks, which average 2.07 cases per day. In each of the past 18 days, local infected case been in single digit.

Date	6-Apr	5-Apr	4-Apr	3-Apr	2-Apr	1-Apr	31-Mar
Local Case	3	1	0	1	7	2	1

For 11 consecutive days in late March, Hong Kong saw the daily number of locally infected cases dropped to single digits with 2 days even down to zero, and in this period averaged 3.27 cases per day.

On March 29, Hong Kong Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development said talks with Singapore on the delayed travel bubble resumed, and the city is in talks with 16 jurisdictions on travel arrangements for those who are vaccinated.

On March 30, Air New Zealand reported domestic business travel been back to 90% of pre-pandemic levels.

Anticipating a surge in demand for holidays, Marketing Director of Ryanair, Europe’s largest low-cost carrier, revealed on March 24 plan to have 2500 flights a week to, from and across Spain this summer.

Over 20 industry groups in USA, including Chamber of Commerce, airlines and the US Travel Association, called for a roadmap so a plan can be in place for international travel by this summer, and accordingly sent a letter to the White House.

In Hong Kong in 8 of the past 10 days in March, the daily number of new case due to local infection dropped to single digit. For the first time in 4 months, all 4 of the locally infected cases have known sources, and media reported government consider relaxing restrictions on local tours.

On March 23, Malaysia and Singapore agreed to make preparations for mutual recognition of each other’s vaccine certificates to facilitate future cross-border travel.

Quoting senior official from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, at the end of this year or early 2022, China can vaccine 70% to 80% of her citizens thus largely achieving herd immunity.

Based on comparison between 2 groups each of 600,000 people with one group been inoculated with Covid-19 vaccine and the other group no inoculation, Clalit - Israel’s largest medical service group found infection rate of the vaccinated dropped by 94% for those with no symptom and by 97% for those with symptom.

The EU targets, by the end of this summer, to vaccine at least 70% of its adult population or 255 million people. Some 11% of EU residents had inoculated as of mid-March.

Indonesia will offer travel corridor to countries with successful vaccination program and will also offer in return reciprocal benefit. Bali, which is included in a pilot project, start receive foreign travelers in June / July.

Two Walt Disney theme parks in California will reopen on April 30. Requiring both advance booking and ticket, attendance at first will be kept at about 15 percent. Various safety measures include wearing mask, temperature check at entrance and social distancing in the parks.

China's embassies in USA, Japan, Pakistan, Israel. Thailand and Gabon have also issued statement which promise to streamline visa arrangement for foreigners who has inoculated with Chinese vaccine for Covid-19 and to visit China for business or humanitarian reason.

On March 17, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong said in the city’s Legislative Council her government has been speaking to the mainland authority to waive some parts of inbound restrictions for vaccinated Hong Kong citizens.

From March 15, China issue visa only for business and family reason to certain travelers from the Philippines who have been inoculated with a Chinese made Covid-19 vaccine. This comes after similar arrangement for foreigners living in Hong Kong.

Koh Samui, resort island in southern Thailand, plans to open fully on Oct 1 this year to vaccinated foreign tourists without quarantine, according to the island’s tourism association.

From Seychelles Tourism Board, starting from March 25 foreign tourists who submit proof of PCR negative test taken 72 hours before departure can enter Seychelles without quarantine, but travelers from South Africa still cannot enter until further notice.

Media reported China plans to inoculate 560 million citizens by the end of June, and another 330 million by the end of this year. By the middle of next year China will vaccinates as much as 80% of the population then reach heard immunity, according to China’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.

In media interview, the director of IATA said personal and leisure travel will return from the second half of this year as borders reopen to tourists hungry to be free again; but business travel will have a slower recovery.

The International Air Transport Association's (IATA) launches a Travel Pass mobile application which allow airlines and immigration authorities to collect and share travelers’ vaccination and test results. Singapore Airline will use this app from March 15 in some routes for two weeks and 30 other airlines will start trial in the coming 2 months.

The China Version of an “International Travel Health Certificate” is available for Chinese citizen via Wechat. The e-certificate shows the holder’s nucleic acid test and serum antibody results, vaccine inoculation, etc. China’s foreign minister broke the news on March 7, which some foreign media describe it as a first step to a global health passport to allow for and facilitate international travel amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the virtual summit held on Feb 25, leaders from EU member states agree to launch digital vaccine passports likely available by summer to help tourism industry to recover.

European Travel Commission, which conducted surveys in last November and December, found growing interest to travel. The December survey found 52% of the European respondents plan to travel within the coming 6 months, which is 5% higher than that in November.

To restart tourism, six European member countries, namely, Spain, Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Malta and Slovakia issued on March 1 a joint statement requesting EU to standardize requirements such as vaccine passport for re-starting non-essential travel.

After UK government announced recovery roadmap, EasyJet report its air ticket booking grew 337% while holiday booking by 630%.

While TUI received many bookings for holiday starting in July, another travel agent THOMAS COOK which saw web traffic grew 100% after UK government announcement, report many family book for holiday in August and Christmas.

Many UK citizens, after government announced recovery road-map on Feb 22, started booking for overseas holiday though UK will only resume international travel the earliest in May. Media reported on Feb 24 that the country’s leading travel agent, TUI, already reported booking for outbound tours grew by 500%.

Starting from Feb 23, Macau will admit all visitors from mainland China without requiring them to quarantine, including cities with recent covid-19 outbreak.

In 2020 there were a total of 28161 marriages in Hong Kong, which dropped by 36.7% as compared to 44520 marriages in 2019.

In 2020, some 1.07 million Chinese travelers visited Japan, which a drop of 88.9% compared to 2019.

Some 10200 Chinese travelers visited Japan in January this year, down 98.9% over same period last year. In each of the three consecutive months including January, Japan received over 10000 Chinese inbound.

On average, Hong Kong citizen has a life span of 84.7 years in 2019 which is higher than Japan at 83.7 years; and for two consecutive years rank first in the world, from World Health Organization.

Earlier this month, Canada announced extending ban on cruise ships to February next year. That effectively shutting down this summer a large part of the popular cruise trips to Alaska, which attracted a record 1.33 million cruise guests in 2019.

Where can resume inbound and outbound travel within six months? The survey found some 20% respondents believe in local tours, the Greater Bay Area and other cities in mainland China; 6.6% South-east Asia; and 3% Europe and Americas etc.

The online survey also found 92.5% of the respondents hope at the soonest to reopen border with mainland China and 92.8% hope Hong Kong to establish travel bubble with overseas.

An online survey in late January in Hong Kong, which received 1113 replies from travel agents and 662 from hotels, found nearly 90% of respondents urge the government to speed up discussions with other regions and countries to establish a vaccine passport.

In 2020, int'l tourist arrivals dropped 74% represents 1.1 billion fewer int'l tourist arrivals, an estimated loss of USD 1.3 trillion int'l tourism income than in the previous year, according to UNWTO.

Phuket’s business associations plan to pool fund to vaccinate the island’s population and apply to Thai government to waive a mandatory 14-day quarantine requirement to reopen to vaccinated foreign visitors by October this year.

In 2019, there were about 13.05 million domestic skiers in China, an on average skied 1.6 times in that year. Among all skiers, 72.04% were one-time-only skiers.

Around 17000 registered marriages between Jan and Sep 2020, a sharp drop of 45% from the same period of last year. But some suppliers in the wedding industry suffer business loss of 90%.

Foreign arrivals to Thailand in 2020 dropped 83% to 6.7 million, and Thailand’s state planning agency predicts foreign arrivals will drop further to 5 million this year.

The Association of Thai Travel Agents (ATTA) recently urged the government to remove a two-week quarantine for those tourists inoculated against Covid-19, and with that implemented tourism could recover in the second half of 2021 and inbound visitors could reach 10 million this year.

From HSBC survey, due to the market turmoil and unemployment uncertainty, respondents in favor of keeping more cash! Allocation of liquid assets with 66% in cash / savings, up by 3ppts and 34% for investment, dipped 3ppts from previous survey in June 2020.

In last September and October, Hong Kong Bank interviewed 1507 the city’s holders of bank account aged 18 to 64 found two-third of them have saving sufficient for covering basic living expenses for 6 months even without any income in the period.

Statistics show family travel in China dropped to an annual average of 2.4 times in 2020 from 2.7 times in 2019.

Theme parks at 27% ranked top, to be followed by Natural Scenery at 22%, Architecture at 19%, City Sightseeing at 12% and Museums at 11%.

Female account for 74% of the bookings, and those age between 7 and 12 years old account for 60% children taking part in family travel.

Based on bookings with children in past year, C-trip, China’s major travel portal, “post-80s” parents accounted for 41%, "post-90s" parents accounted for 32%, and "post-70s" parents accounted for 20%.

In the 2018-2019 winter season, China’s ice and snow tourists totaled 224 million and dropped by about 130 million during the 2019-2020 winter season.

China's ice and snow tourism travelers projected to 230 million trips during the current winter season which lasts from Nov20 to Mar21, generate revenue of more than RMB390 billion.

A report released by China Tourism Academy in early January on ice-and-snow tourism, 82% respondents are interest in short-distance ice-snow tours while 53% will keep or spend more for such trips than last year.

Beijing Skiing Association Chairman reported skiing grounds near Beijing during the three days New Year Holiday this year saw 40% to 50% more skiers than last year.

The global medical tourism market is forecast to be worth US$65.8 billion in 2025, which the Asia-Pacific will account for around 40%.

From report by the Hong Kong Food and Health Bureau, the city’s private sector medical expenditures in 2019 totaled HK$86.9 billion or US$11.1 billion, which is projected to grow at compound rate of 7.6% per year and will reach Hk$134 billion in 2025. Good potential for health / wellness tourism.

A study in early 2020 found 65% of the mainland Chinese who went abroad for medical treatments and services in 2019 came from high income groups of entrepreneurs and enterprises’ senior management; and 99% of these business went to destinations like USA, UK and Japan.

From China’s major travel portal, C-trip, hotel rates during the New Year Holiday this year are higher than same period last year with three star hotels increasing by 23%, four star by 21% and five star by 17%.

Rate of Macau's hotels between Dec 31 and Jan 3 average MOP$1127.6, which on the whole a rise of 7.6% over the last Golden Week in October; and rate for five stars hotels average MOP$1447.7 while four stars hotels at MOP$701.1.

On average, 19629 inbound from mainland China visited Macau each day between Dec 31 and Jan 3, accounting for 92% of the city’s total daily inbound in the period.

The Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce (HKGCC) conducted a survey in early November 2020 received 314 companies responded, and found 40% of HK companies expect the city’s business prospects to be negative in 2021, 22% saw their turnover plunge by more than half in the first 10 months of 2020, and 29% already cut down on number of staff comparing to the beginning of last year.

Media report Hong Kong will soon have a new e-booking system for vaccine inoculations, and the government is in talk with other countries over recognizing an electronic record for COVID-19 vaccination may be used for travel purpose.

Beijing will during New Year and Chinese New Year discourage travel agencies from various markets and online travel agencies to organize tour groups to the city; while the city’s travel agencies and online travel agencies will also suspend group tours nor selling ticket hotel package to domestic destinations designated as medium or high risk areas.

Mid last month, the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce HKGCC projected the city’s economy will drop 6% in 2020 but will rise 3.5% in 2021; and unemployment rate rise to 7% in 2020, and will fall to 4.8% in 2021.