Coronavirus: battered Hong Kong travel industry calls for mutual recognition of vaccines as bubble hopes soar

Industry calls on city and prospective travel bubble partners to strike agreements recognising each other’s approved vaccines to get deals off the ground

Commerce secretary Edward Yau confirms travel bubble discussions have restarted with Singapore, but declines to offer details

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Hong Kong’s travel industry is pushing hard for officials to finalise travel bubbles with other countries. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Published: 7:30am, 30 Mar 2021Updated: 11:22am, 18 Jun 2021

Hong Kong’s travel industry has called on the city and its prospective travel bubble partners to strike bilateral agreements recognising each other’s approved Covid-19 vaccines in order to get the long-awaited deals off the ground.

The appeal from the battered sector came as the Hong Kong government relaunched efforts to strike quarantine-free travel bubble deals with countries like Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and Vietnam, while urging residents to get vaccinated if they hoped to take advantage of a travel bubble with Singapore that the city negotiated last year only for it to burst amid a spike in cases.

All of those countries were among the ones the government approached about possible agreements last year, along with Malaysia, France, Germany and Switzerland.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong officials on Monday urged residents to get vaccinated if they hoped to take advantage of a travel bubble with Singapore, which the city negotiated last year only for it to fall flat amid a spike in cases.

However, the Lion City has so far only approved the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, and is still assessing the clinical trial data for China’s Sinovac – one of the two types of jab available in Hong Kong, along with BioNTech.