Fiji in, Hong Kong out: Asian tourism seen to struggle until 2024
Fiji, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and the Maldives are among Asia-Pacific destinations in the strongest position to revive their pandemic-battered tourism industries, while Hong Kong’s restrictive border policies have the worst prospects, a new report said.
Singapore, Australia, Bangladesh, New Zealand, Nepal and Cambodia also rank among the top 10 best destinations for tourism recovery, according to the Travel-Ready Index 2022 released by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).
The EIU said the top performers in the index have relaxed all visa and entry restrictions in 2021 or earlier.
“The combination of broader and more effective vaccination coverage and a greater reliance on tourism has lent itself to less restrictive travel policies,” the EIU said in its report released on Wednesday.
According to the index, Hong Kong ranks as the destinations with the least favorable conditions for tourism, followed by Brunei, Bhutan, Taiwan, Samoa, Vanuatu, Japan, China and Laos.
Northeast Asian economies, which are less dependent on tourism, have been slow to reopen, the report said, with China and its territories Hong Kong and Macau predicting their strict “dynamic zero COVID” policies for at least 2022. Will be with
The EIU said, “While Macau benefits from a bilateral arrangement in which mainland Chinese tourists can visit that region without quarantine, Hong Kong – a global trade and financial hub – will suffer as it loses connectivity to the world.” “
Thailand, India, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Mongolia and South Korea were ranked in the middle table for tourism status.
The index measures favorable conditions for tourism based on the importance of tourism to the economy, local vaccination coverage, ease of travel and convenience of returning home.
slow reopening
Gary Bowerman, director of Kuala Lumpur-based travel and tourism research firm Check-In Asia, said the report shows Asia Pacific lags far behind Europe and North America in terms of resumption of travel.
“Asia is starting to reopen its tourism much later than the rest of the world,” Bowerman told Al Jazeera. “If you look at Europe and North America, even during the pandemic, they used to open and close during the summer season, so in 2020 and 2021, Europe was open for travel.”
The EIU said tourism in the region, with the exception of Fiji and the Maldives, will not recover to pre-pandemic levels until at least 2024, possibly as a result of China’s restrictive border policies. 13 of the 28 economies on the index relied on China as their top source of visitors before the pandemic.
Other risks to the recovery highlighted by the think tank include new coronavirus variants, high oil prices and rising inflation.
“Most countries are starting almost from scratch after two years, and rebuilding everything in the tourism industry is very difficult after two years of shutdown, especially with airlines,” Bowerman said.
“Airlines are the big factor here because they have taken a big hit in the last two years and they are very cautious about how they get flights back in their system because they have balance sheets that are really struggling. They’ve also got jet fuel prices that are incredibly volatile right now and the Ukraine-Russia war isn’t helping. ,
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