Vaccine passports, domestic tourism, pricey flights - is this future of travel in post-pandemic Asia

[Klaralven]

When international travel returns, it’s likely tourists will have to use a second passport – a globally recognised one that shows all the vaccines they have taken. Even with the new documentation, however, the free movement of people that happened in pre-pandemic times is unlikely to return this year, with travellers mostly limited to travel bubbles or business lanes. And with fewer flights and more vaccines and tests, hopping aboard a plane is likely to become a lot more expensive – and a lot less frequent.

Those were the predictions of tourism experts who spoke to This Week in Asia – with the additional point that just like last year, travellers are more likely to stick to exploring their own countries rather than heading overseas.

Hotelier Ho Kwon Ping – the executive chairman of Banyan Tree Holdings, which runs hotels across Asia, America, Africa and the Middle East – told a recent conference that travel would become more purposeful, with people thinking harder before buying a flight ticket, whether for leisure or business. Meanwhile, Abhineet Kaul, senior director of public sector and government at Frost & Sullivan, said it would be “at least 2024 before tourism is back to the levels of 2018 and 2019”.

Travel has changed drastically since January last year, when countries around the world began to ban flights from China in reaction to the spread of the coronavirus there. As the restrictions spread in the wake of Covid-19, international travel ground to a standstill. Little has changed almost 12 months later, with many countries now banning arrivals from Britain and South Africa due to a more infectious variant of the disease.

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3116142/vaccine-passports-domestic-tourism-pricey-flights-future-travel

[PSPS]

1. Memo to "experts": "Flying places" is never going to go back to what it was. Have a nice day.

Recreational flying may come back somewhat over the next ten years. Most business travel won't be coming back at all. Business owners will opt to save the $10K and do a zoom meeting instead.

[Initech]

5. Then I'd expect way more leisure travel to happen.

If you're going to be on a Zoom meeting and no one's going to track your location, do you really have to be at home? Why not go to Maui or head to that Caribbean all inclusive resort? Or go see your favorite sports team or band in concert?

Hey I finally see the benefits of Zoom!

[DFW]

2. Vaccination passports aren't a future innovation. They're the past returning

When I made my first trip to Europe in 1968, we all had to present our yellow vaccination booklets along with our passports. That was discontinued for most travel a few years later, though proof if vaccination is still required for travel to some parts of Africa. My daughter needed it to travel to Sierra Leone for her UN stint in 2008.

Some travel for work will still have to be done in person. There‘s no way I could do my job via Zoom.

[Klaralven]

3. I think that the yellow vaccination booklet was still required in '71 for a vacation

By the mid '80s, when I began to attend meetings in Europe, it was no longer required.

Preparation for meetings then was quite primitive by mail, telex to Europe, fax to Japan and the occasional phone call. By the mid '90s things had substantially improved, since most counterparts at industrial and academic R&D organizations had access to internet mail. Mail attachments were now being exchanged.

Now, with the development of collaboration tools, not just the video conferencing, I believe that most of the working level meetings could be done over the internet. So there would need to be fewer attendees at the face-to-face meetings for bargaining in the hallways and cafes.

[DFW]

4. I remember I didn't need un any more when I met my wife in West Berlin

That was 1974.