HONG KONG (BLOOMBERG) – Hong Kong’s plan to shorten quarantine sparked a wave of searches on travel websites by residents desperate to fly abroad, even if it means a week of isolation in a hotel room and Covid-19 tests galore upon return.

Hong Kong search traffic on travel-booking website Skyscanner soared 43 per cent Monday (June 21), when the government said quarantine would be cut to seven days from June 30 for fully vaccinated residents arriving from all but the riskiest virus hotspots.

Some of the most popular destinations were mainland China, Japan, the US and UK, a Skyscanner spokesman said, despite many having strict entry requirements of their own.

There’s also a risk of countries falling back into the highest risk categories, which require 21 days quarantine, vaccinated or not.

Within 24 hours of Monday’s announcement, searches for international destinations on Expedia Groups local website rose by 10 per cent and by 40 per cent for Macau, according to the company’s Asia-Pacific Managing Director Catherine So.

While Hong Kong has had no new local infections for more than two weeks, one or two imported cases continue to trickle in, keeping authorities on guard.

That cautious approach has left a quarantine-free travel agreement with Singapore on the shelf, even though it has had similar success in containing the virus and there’s strong pent-up demand for flights between the two financial hubs.

Hong Kong’s low vaccination rate remains a stumbling block to reopening.

Only about 17 per cent of residents are fully inoculated despite an abundance of vaccine supply and a growing trove of potential prizes offered by the business community to incentivise people to get vaccinated.

Concern about side effects and distrust of the Beijing-backed government have slowed the city’s vaccination progress, but the chance for shorter quarantine for travellers appears to have had an impact – bookings for BioNTech and Sinovac shots increased 55 per cent on Monday from the previous day.

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