Travel bubble with Singapore: How the Hong Kong government got it wrong

Name: Hong Kong, Singapore announce plans for quarantine-free travel bubble
Uploaded: 2020-10-20T00:30:15.000Z
Duration: 1 min 43 s
Description: Hong Kong, Singapore announce plans for quarantine-free travel bubble

Singapore is neither among the top five of Hongkongers’ preferred destinations nor the only one with a good record of handling Covid-19

Taiwan, popular with locals, is the obvious candidate. But a travel bubble with it is probably a bridge too far for the Beijing-fearing government

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Visitors cross a skyway at Gardens by the Bay in Singapore. Hong Kong could have done much better for its first travel bubble than with Singapore, a city with a significant snooze factor. Photo: AFP

Peter Kammerer

Published: 8:30am, 20 Oct 2020Updated: 1:02pm, 20 Oct 2020

Given a choice of a getaway in Singapore or Singapore, which would you choose? I’d opt for staying at home.

Of course, there are those in Hong Kong who just feel so hemmed in by the Covid-19 restrictions that they would jump at any chance to get on a plane and go somewhere, anywhere. Still, the Hong Kong government’s much-hyped interim deal with its Singaporean counterpart to establish the city’s first travel bubble is yet more proof of its inability to understand the wants and needs of the people it claims to govern.

Singapore ranks in the lower reaches of the top 10 places Hongkongers like to travel to. Heading that list in 2019 is Taipei, with Seoul, Bangkok, Tokyo and Osaka rounding out the top five, according to online travel agency Skyscanner. All these destinations are eager to forge agreements to get their economies and tourism industries up and running again, and Hong Kong has always been a popular destination for their citizens.

It’s a mystery why anyone would channel their energies into striking the first agreement with a city that, to me and friends I asked, has a significant snooze factor.

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Hong Kong, Singapore announce plans for quarantine-free travel bubble

There’s a reason Singapore isn’t in the top five destinations – it’s worth only a short stay at best. Its top attractions, according to users of the TripAdvisor website, are parks and gardens; Gardens by the Bay is number one, followed by the Botanic Gardens, the Singapore Zoo, the National Orchid Garden and the Cloud Forest conservatory, which is a feature within Gardens by the Bay.

The Cloud Forest sounds quite intriguing, being a man-made 35-metre-high mist-covered slope and waterfall inside a giant glass dome. But I think the online videos tell all – and whether it’s worth the anticipated higher-than-usual fares for dedicated flights and hefty fees for Covid-19 testing at either end of the trip is a matter of debate.

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