Winton Dong

dht0620@126.com

“TRAVEL bubbles,” also called travel bridges or travel corridors, are areas of safe travel established by reciprocal nations that agree on detailed guidelines to enable their people to move freely across their borders, just as in those easy days before the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

The term has turned out to be a frequently used phrase for countries hoping to reopen their borders and restart their travel industries to revive slumping economies.

It is obvious that the enduring pandemic has pushed the global economy into a super-cold winter. With the tourism sector as an example, 63.4 million tourism jobs have been lost in Asia due to the pandemic. According to South China Morning Post, the passenger traffic at Changi Airport in Singapore, the world’s 17th busiest airport last year, has greatly decreased from 5.63 million passengers in March last year to about 100 arrival and 700 departure passengers a day now.

All countries know that if they want to stimulate their economies, they must reopen borders and revive tourism. But the scruple is that they are not sure if there will be a second or third wave of virus attacks in the near future, so each nation should introduce “travel bubbles” cautiously and gradually to make people’s health and safety top priorities.

Some countries and regions with declining infections have tried to create “travel bubbles” to lift travel restrictions. Generally speaking, such bubbles will most probably start with neighboring countries. Since people moving within the framework of “travel bubbles” do not need to be placed under quarantines, concerned countries need to discuss more details and develop a practical system to make it safe and efficient.

China will be a key factor for the success of the “travel bubbles” strategy in Asia. According to a survey, the top five outbound destinations for Chinese tourists are Japan, Thailand, Europe, the Maldives and Singapore. In 2018, 27 million Chinese tourists visited ASEAN nations. In 2019, Chinese accounted for one-fifth of the total tourists in Singapore and more than a quarter of arrivals in Thailand.

China and South Korea opened such a bubble on May 1 this year for business travelers to go between South Korea and 10 Chinese regions through a fast-track procedure, on the condition that they must test negative for COVID-19 prior to departure and upon arrival. Among the first travelers to use the scheme was Samsung Electronics vice chairman Lee Jae-yong, who made a three-day visit to inspect a Samsung chip plant in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province.

Starting June 8, people from Singapore and six Chinese provinces and municipalities (namely Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing) can make essential or business trips without a 14-day quarantine.

Many other countries are also taking similar measures or expanding travel corridors. Australia and neighboring New Zealand are thinking of enlarging the scope of their bubble framework. Southeast Asian nations are also considering creating travel bubbles with their neighboring countries.

Such bubbles are also suitable for the European Union (EU), which already has facilitated border-crossing procedures. Europe is eager to lift restrictions and revive economies. The continent has been hit hard by the pandemic during the past months. The once-crowded tourist hot spots in Europe, such as Venice, Rome and Paris, have all stood empty.

Even though they are still tiny and limited in some certain industries, travel bubbles will surely give more impetus to the revitalization of tourism and even the whole economy. Nevertheless, it is unrealistic to expect everything to go back to the “old normal” after the pandemic. Frankly speaking, our lives will never be the same again. With the practice of social distancing and the serious lessons drawn from the pandemic, many business activities have gone online, and some businesspeople might refrain from travel and choose to meet online, too. Leisure travelers may favor domestic destinations or more flexible options such as flights allowing cancellations or changes.

(The author is the editor-in-chief of Shenzhen Daily with a Ph.D. from the Journalism and Communication School of Wuhan University.)