Covid-19 vaccines are finally here – so when can I travel again? The face of luxury tourism in 2021 and beyond

Jan 18 , 2021

Coronavirus vaccines are finally being rolled out all over the world, making the prospect of an escape to the Maldives more hopeful for many luxury travellers. Photo: SCMP

So, vaccines. That’s a relief, eh? With several Covid-19 vaccines appearing to be safe and effective, one of the questions on many people’s lips is: when can we go on holiday again?

But it’s going to be a tremendous challenge to make enough of those vaccines, get them to people and get those people to take them, so a return to anything like normal for luxury travel is likely to take a little while yet. And so the answer to the question of when we can travel appears to be: not any time soon, but probably at some point this year – although, as with everything else where this disease is concerned, that could easily change.

I think it’s good news for us that the vaccine is ready, but … it will take time for the public to trust the effectiveness of the vaccines … it won’t go back to pre-Covid levels in one night

Jason Wong, chairman, Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong

A precious vial containing CoronaVac, Sinovac Biotech’s vaccine against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), at Butantan biomedical production centre in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Photo: Reuters

In Hong Kong, vaccines will be available free of charge from the government probably exclusively, but will not be mandatory. The government hopes to start vaccinating people in January and has secured supplies of three vaccines from three different sources which are due to arrive at different times during 2021: Sinovac from China, BioNTech/Pfizer from Germany and the US, and Oxford/AstraZeneca from the UK.

Some but not many other jurisdictions around the world have already started vaccination programmes. Israel, with a population slightly larger than Hong Kong’s, seems to have been the fastest in rolling it out so far. It’s currently vaccinating about 2 per cent of its population per day with other small, wealthy states in the Middle East not far behind.

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The Luxury Suite at the Taj Fateh Prakash Palace in Udaipur, India. Photo: Taj Fateh Prakash Palace

There is no news, though, on when people will be able to travel freely and without quarantine. Hong Kong is still banning non-residents and mandating 21 days’ quarantine for all incoming residents, while most other places have similarly stringent restrictions. The vaccine will need to have been rolled out to a very large number of people and its effects closely monitored – in particular the effect it has on the virus’s ability to infect other people – before any jurisdiction is going to even think about lowering its guard in terms of travel restrictions.

Jason Wong, chairman of travel trade body the Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong, says sentiment in the industry is optimistic but cautious.

When can we next get aboard a Gulfstream G650? Photo: Handout

“I think it’s good news for us that the vaccine is ready, but it’s not really time yet to assess the impact on demand. It will take time for the public to trust the effectiveness of the vaccines.

“Everyone in town is really looking forward [to it]. The demand is here: Hong Kong people really love to travel. But we understand it won’t go back to pre-Covid levels in one night.”

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According to David Keen, founder and CEO of Bangkok-based hospitality branding agency Quo, with the announcement of the vaccine, the end of 2020 and the election of Joe Biden in the US, “there was an expectation that somehow [Covid-19] would miraculously go away”. But, he says, “2021 will be horrible pretty much globally; 2022 might be better. The operative word is ‘volatile’.”

The luxury end of the travel industry has as good a chance as any to get back on its feet, as it’s the sector most likely to be able to provide the sort of assurances about safety that people are going to be increasingly likely to demand. Plus, as Keen points out, with the rich having become richer during the pandemic and the poor poorer, there’s an even stronger economic reason than usual for the luxury end of the market to rebound.

Free movement of travellers is likely to be dependent on individuals having received an approved vaccine and as a result some kind of certification, probably electronic – something that Qantas CEO Alan Joyce, for example, has said he thinks will me mandatory. Others within the travel industry, including World Travel and Tourism Council CEO Gloria Guevara, have said that such a requirement could cripple any recovery and deal another heavy blow to a sector that has already suffered mightily.

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Among the electronic tools being developed to verify vaccinations, WEF-backed non-profit CommonTrust Network is rolling out a system called CommonPass, while global airline group IATA is working on something similar called Travel Pass.

Immunity passports, says Keen, are “an ideal solution, but with how political everything’s becoming and how polarised countries are, how easy is that going to be? There has to be some kind of system, but it’s hard to put into place. Will that be a nail in the coffin of the travel industry? It could be.”

Dubai’s Atlantis The Palm, an ideal getaway for many luxury travellers. Photo: AFP

In addition to the challenges of international cooperation, adds Wong, “privacy issues need to be taken care of, plus is the cost being borne by governments or by travellers?”

The financial markets, at least, think that the vaccine announcements are good news for the travel industry: Cathay Pacific’s share price, for example, had risen from HK$5.26 (US$0.68) at the end of October to more than HK$7 at the time of writing. Credit agency Fitch Ratings sounded a warning, though, when it predicted recently that it will take the global industry until about 2024 to recover to pre-pandemic levels.

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Coronavirus pandemic

China’s Sinovac, BioNTech/Pfizer from Germany and the US, and the UK’s Oxford/AstraZeneca will all be available in Hong Kong
Will immunity passports like CommonPass be necessary to travel, and when will they be introduced?