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

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

Peter Kammerer

Published: 8:30am, 20 Oct 2020

Why you can trust SCMP

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.

01:43

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.

Singapore’s skyline continues to be reshaped by one family: the Yongs

The Hong Kong authorities explained when making the announcement last week that Singapore was among 11 countries being talked to about creating bilateral travel arrangements that bypass quarantine. The city state’s comparable low infection rates made forging a deal easier.

But Commerce Secretary Edward Yau Tang-wah repeatedly dodged questions at a press conference about why Taiwan wasn’t on the list of places being negotiated with. The island is, after all, not only the most popular travel destination – its scenery, street food and affordability are among the attractions – but also has an even better record of handling the disease than either city.

02:15

Taiwan researchers make Covid-19 self-test machine using biosensor chips for results in minutes

Perhaps politics is to blame; Beijing is at constant loggerheads with Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen over her supposed independence-leaning policies and United States President Donald Trump’s administration is using Taiwan as a pawn in its game of great power rivalry with China.

Under Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, though, the city is responsible for its own immigration policies and none of that geopolitics should affect what is good or bad for Hong Kong residents. I tend to favour the idea that Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and her ministers are thinking more about their bloated salaries than the good of Hong Kong by plumping for Singapore. It’s easy, there’s no risk of antagonising Beijing, and they get to say they did something.

But the numbers don’t lie. In 2019, Hong Kong residents made 94.71 million departures. Of those, around 1.6 million trips were taken to Taiwan, according to the island’s tourism bureau. Singapore’s tourism board recorded just 489,000 arrivals from Hong Kong.

Think of the travel bubble with Singapore that is being finalised as akin to the face masks Hong Kong officials distributed to residents, the free Covid-19 mass testing, and the bridge to Macau and Zhuhai, among a lengthy list; it wasn’t asked for by residents, they didn’t need it and there are far better alternatives. It’s just what can be expected of a lazy, ineffective government that is out of touch, unpopular and widely perceived as not being in charge.

Peter Kammerer is a senior writer at the Post

Post