Travel bubble: Singapore goes gaga for Hong Kong trips, sparking ticket price surge

“It’s an escape to a new environment, really,” said the travel-starved 38-year-old Singaporean, who works in the fintech sector. His last overseas trip, he said, was nine months ago. “It’s just a great time to escape to cooler weather, and with the flexibility to work from anywhere I could kill two birds with one stone.”

Nuno Guerreiro, regional director at online travel agency Booking.com, noted that the agency saw a significant increase in searches for “Hong Kong” by Singaporeans when the travel corridor was announced last month. In the past week, the Singapore and Hong Kong markets were each other‘s top searched city destinations, according to Booking.com data.

Online travel services provider Trip.com said searches for Hong Kong to Singapore flights surged 300 per cent within three hours of the travel bubble announcement, while the jump was 200 per cent for Singapore to Hong Kong flights. Volume climbed for hotels in both cities as well, it said.

Huan, the Singaporean traveller, admitted that the four-figure sum he forked out, excluding costs of testing – which could reach HK$1,890 – was not low, but he added that he wanted to test out the travel bubble, boasted as being the first of its kind by officials on both sides. Huan said he would visit Hong Kong’s scenic hiking routes and famed eateries during his two-week trip in mid-December.