Hong Kong’s abrupt quarantine end triggers new crisis for hotels
HONG KONG – Hong Kong’s former quarantine hotels are awash with empty rooms after the city axed its dreaded mandatory isolation rule for arrivals but kept other Covid-19 curbs likely to repel inbound tourists.
The Ovolo Group’s Southside and Central properties had just four bookings left on Monday after logging some 1,500 quarantine cancellations over the weekend, said Mr Mael Vastine, director of operations in Hong Kong.
“Business has been impacted and it will take some time to recover,” he added, noting that neither hotel had taken a new reservation in recent days.
The Landmark Mandarin Oriental’s manager, Mr Christoph Schauer, said the “vast majority” of its guests cancelled after Chief Executive John Lee announced on Sept 23 that international arrivals would no longer need to spend three days isolating in a hotel. Some 26,200 rooms across the city had been reserved for quarantine before the move.
Hong Kong’s abrupt elimination of the hotel quarantine programme, which has weighed on the city’s economy, blindsided the more than 60 hotels that had relied on it for bookings for nearly two years.
Under the new programme, arrivals are still subject to three days of self-monitoring and testing, during which they must submit to polymerase chain reaction tests and are barred from bars, restaurants and many public spaces, putting an imminent influx of foreign guests out of reach.
“We will just be barely surviving,” Ms Winnie Chan, association manager at the Federation of Hong Kong Hotel Owners, said of the new rules. “We hope the government can further relax… as soon as possible.”
The government said in an e-mailed statement that for a 30-day termination period, former quarantine hotels could claim a subsidy based on their cheapest room cost, occupancy rate and property size, provided at least half their rooms were empty. This would allow a hotel with 100 rooms operating at 10 per cent occupancy to claim at most HK$24,000 ($4,380) a day.
Hong Kong’s elimination of hotel quarantine came as Japan and Taiwan both announced plans to abolish Covid-19 border curbs to attract tourists. Other parts of Asia such as Thailand and Singapore are already open and living with the virus, making them a more attractive destination than Hong Kong, which also still has an outdoor mask mandate.
Instead, the city is facing a surge in outbound travel. This could negatively impact hotels previously capitalising on the staycation market, as residents no longer subject to return quarantine take their spending power abroad. Trip.com’s Hong Kong website saw a nearly 400 per cent increase in outbound flight orders over the weekend compared with Sept 17 to 18.
While inbound flights to Hong Kong also saw a 155 per cent spike from the previous weekend, the numbers represented a fraction of pre-pandemic arrivals. The city welcomed 124,000 visitors in the seven months to July – compared with 40 million in the same period in 2019, according to the Hong Kong Tourism Board.
Ms Anita Chan, senior vice-president of global marketing at Dorsett Hospitality International, said lifting quarantine was a “vital step towards a full end of restrictions”. The group planned to use the next three months to refurbish rooms to prepare for the “full reopening of Hong Kong”.
In the meantime, the brand’s three Silka Hotels would launch packages catering to domestic helpers, whose employers might not want them to undertake the three-day self-monitoring period at home. Such workers must legally live with their employers.
The Mandarin’s Mr Schauer echoed that optimism, saying that despite the short-term challenges, the hotel staff’s overall reaction to the scrapping of quarantine was one of relief.
“We opened our lobby doors on Monday afternoon and welcomed our first guests,” he added. “It was great to see colleagues in front of the house without the full PPE (personal protective equipment), gloves and goggles.” BLOOMBERG
source https://eastmud.com/latest-news/hong-kongs-abrupt-quarantine-end-triggers-new-crisis-for-hotels/