Nearly three years after the pandemic shut down global travel, Hong Kong will be lifting travel restrictions to the point that I’m almost ready to visit again… I think?
In this post:
Hong Kong ending most international travel restrictions
Since the start of the pandemic, Hong Kong has been one of the strictest places in the world when it comes to coronavirus related travel restrictions. For well over two years, Hong Kong had required a quarantine in a facility for international travelers, which has been as long as 21 days.
We saw the first major sign of restrictions being eased in September 2022, as Hong Kong ended its quarantine requirement for vaccinated travelers. However, significant restrictions remained in place, including extensive testing (including prior to travel and upon arrival), limits on where travelers could visit on their first three days (restaurants, bars, etc., were off limits), and the requirement to use a health app.
These restrictions will finally be eased. As of Wednesday, December 14, 2022, international arriving travelers in Hong Kong:
- Will have no restrictions on movement, and can visit restaurants, bars, etc., as soon as they arrive
- Will no longer have to use a health app to show their amber code
In other words, travelers no longer have any major restrictions, with the exception of a testing requirement. Two coronavirus tests still remain necessary — one rapid antigen test is required within 24 hours of departure, and then a PCR test is required on the second day after arrival.
Hong Kong further easing travel restrictions comes as mainland China has started to ease some of its coronavirus related restrictions, as the country no longer pursues a zero tolerance approach toward the pandemic.
Would I travel to Hong Kong now?
Pre-pandemic, Hong Kong was probably my favorite city in the world, and I’ve really been wanting to go back. Up until now, Hong Kong’s attempts to ease travel restrictions haven’t been enough to make me feel comfortable visiting.
I wasn’t about to go to Hong Kong, only to get tested endlessly, and to then not be able to go to many outlets for three days. I was happy waiting until more restrictions were eased.
So, does the latest update on travel restrictions change how I feel? Yes(ish):
- For the first couple of years of the pandemic, I had no problems with destinations having testing requirements; however, with a vast majority of destinations no longer requiring testing, and with the general ramifications of testing positive, I’m a bit more cautious at this point
- Not having restrictions on movement once you arrive in Hong Kong is great news, and a step in the right direction
- I’d feel comfortable visiting Hong Kong now if there were a specific reason I wanted to go, but personally I still wouldn’t travel there casually as a stopover for a few days; there’s still a bit of a hassle factor, and there are other places without restrictions I’d also like to return to
I do think this is a huge step in the right direction, though, and especially important for business. People traveling to Hong Kong for business can once again do so in a reasonable manner.
One other consideration is that flying to Hong Kong won’t necessarily be that easy. Cathay Pacific is still only operating a small percentage of its pre-pandemic schedule, and isn’t able to ramp up service quickly, given how much of its fleet is parked, how many staff have been laid off, etc.
That’s not to say that getting a flight to Hong Kong will be impossible, but I wouldn’t expect capacity to ramp up as quickly as we’ve seen in some other markets. As a result, airfares will be high, and award availability limited.
Bottom line
Hong Kong is lifting most remaining travel restrictions as of this week. Hong Kong is no longer limiting the movement of arriving international travelers, and is also eliminating the amber health app requirement. Travelers will still need to test prior to travel and upon arrival, which isn’t a huge deal.
It’s nice to see Hong Kong ease restrictions to the point that I think many people would feel comfortable traveling there. Hong Kong has come a long way in the past several months, when you consider that until April, international transit passengers weren’t even allowed at the airport…
What do you make of Hong Kong further easing travel restrictions? Is this enough for you to want to visit?
Just back from HKG, having visited under the 0+3 protocol. A couple of points:
First the amber code is not what one showed to get in to restaurants. Amber was for the first 3 days, and meant you couldn't go in. On day 3 it changed to blue (at 9:00 a.m.) which meant that you had satisfied all requirements and were good to go.
Second, the app was required for everyone, not just travellers. You...
Just back from HKG, having visited under the 0+3 protocol. A couple of points:
First the amber code is not what one showed to get in to restaurants. Amber was for the first 3 days, and meant you couldn't go in. On day 3 it changed to blue (at 9:00 a.m.) which meant that you had satisfied all requirements and were good to go.
Second, the app was required for everyone, not just travellers. You had to scan the restaurant's qr code to log your visit, then have your own blue qr code scanned to be admitted.
Third, daily RAT testing wasn't overly onerous, but yes it was required as the price of admission. Tolerate it or hate it so much it's a deal breaker, your choice. Personally, I disliked it far less than airport security.
Fourth, the two PCR tests were pretty easy and convenient (and free, unlike the $600 I had to pay a year ago to travel to Hawaii). I did the first at the airport with no wait, and the second at a testing centre in the park across the street from my hotel, again with no wait.
Anyway, all this is now moot, apparently. Hope the opening up doesn't create another wave.
I also hope the vaccine mandate stays in place widely. Let the unvaxxed stay home while the rest of us travel freely.
Hong Kong, like every other place in the world, will suffer indefinite “waves” of infection in perpetuity, whether or not it ever reopens. This is because SARS-CoV-2 is now a permanent member of the family of human viruses. Thankfully, it presents like the common cold in most people, so it’s time to stop paying it any attention.
I'm a bit confused by the new requirements for testing. If I get off a cruise ship in HK and immediately fly out the same day, what tests will I need? My wife and I are fully vaccinated and boosted twice.
HongKongers initially had the Chinese Sinovac vaccine (max. 62.3% efficacy) or AstraZenica vaccine (not much better). Only much later was a limited amount of Bio-Tech Pfizer available.
On top of that not that many of the population is fully vaccinated with a 3rd shot of anything. Many of the older and most vulnerable folk are completely unvaccinated as they are (probably rightly) suspicious of any Chinese made vaccines.
Overall HK is a seething...
HongKongers initially had the Chinese Sinovac vaccine (max. 62.3% efficacy) or AstraZenica vaccine (not much better). Only much later was a limited amount of Bio-Tech Pfizer available.
On top of that not that many of the population is fully vaccinated with a 3rd shot of anything. Many of the older and most vulnerable folk are completely unvaccinated as they are (probably rightly) suspicious of any Chinese made vaccines.
Overall HK is a seething partly, poorly, or unvaccinated petri dish best avoided.
So that should help with the decision making Ben!
What a load of rubbish. As an expat living in Hong Kong, I can tell you that BioNTech was available immediately and in plentiful supply, right from the start. I was triple vaccinated with it before any of my friends in Europe. I don't think AstraZenica has been available at all.
Hong Kong was initially about 4 months behind the US/UK in terms of administering vaccinations (because of elderly population being distrustful of government/not...
What a load of rubbish. As an expat living in Hong Kong, I can tell you that BioNTech was available immediately and in plentiful supply, right from the start. I was triple vaccinated with it before any of my friends in Europe. I don't think AstraZenica has been available at all.
Hong Kong was initially about 4 months behind the US/UK in terms of administering vaccinations (because of elderly population being distrustful of government/not caring about travel and seeing the reason for it) but HK is now quite comfortably ahead of most countries in terms of numbers fully vaccinated per capita (over 90% vs 75% for UK or 69% for US) - easy stats to find and just shows total ignorance/arrogance.
The management of COVID in HK has been a joke - but not for the reasons you suggest at all. In fact one of the biggest frustrations is that the population is so vaccinated and yet the restrictions have remained in place.
Ben - it's still one of the best cities in the world - though I'd give it another 3 months for the mask mandate to be scrapped (another annoyance)
Much as I love CX and the Conrad HK, and have 6 years left on my China visa, I still am loathe to visit China while Xi and the CPC are war mongering in the area and the rest of the world.
I agree with you. If one has a strong reason to go, now it's less arduous. But for a vacation, two tests are a lot of hassle, plus the risk of being forced into quarantine makes it a no-go.
Not an accurate headline by any stretch of the imagination. "Lifts most restrictions" really means just being able to forgo a couple PCR tests... AFTER you've arrived and already done two tests! What a letdown.
Will you be reading from your little red book too? HK has been lost to the communists because people like you were scared of a cold.
*Someone* is anti-science.
Or you have sand in your vagina.
Either way, your comment is off the chain nutsy.
I certainly wouldn't visit HK without first getting at least one negative PCR test prior to departure, which is probably cost prohibitive for many. Considering some people will still get a positive PCR test 2-3 months after recovery...it would be less than ideal to get to HK, get a negative antigen test, and then get a surprise positive (with quarantine requirement) on Day 2.
Is Covid tourism a thing?
As in “Come Visit China, Take Home Some Covid?”
No thank you.
Covid test = no thanks
Most of the civilized world is doing just fine without antiquated measures.
if by fine you mean 500 people dying every day in the US, then sure!
I don't like the mandatory testing either but let's not pretend everything is just fine. We've accepted a weekly 9/11 because it's out of sight and mind for most of us. A dispensable part of the population.
It's not that hard to do a test really, even if I find it irritating. It's easier than taking off my shoes for security, and that doesn't stop me from traveling. I doubt it stops you either.
“ It's easier than taking off my shoes for security”
You must have some terrible to deal with shoes. I suggest loafers.
@Never In Doubt I have CLEAR and PRE so I don't have to take off my shoes in the US. Doing a covid test is about as easy as putting a pair of loafers on and off. It really is.
8,000 people die in the US every day from all causes, many of them preventable. SARS-CoV-2, which is one of the most contagious respiratory viruses in history, is basically not preventable at this point.
Get over it and move on.
How many people have been dying daily for a decade due to opioid crisis? We didn’t shutdown for that. A few billion dollar fines and moving forward.
How many people die daily due to obesity and diabetes? Way more than COVId but we aren’t prohibiting eating trash food and incentivizing a healthy lifestyle.
Point is the hyper focus on Covid deaths is stupid in comparison to other major issues that take significantly more lives daily.
Open your eyes, puppet.
Intelligence abounds, clearly. Great work not actually discussing the point at hand!
It's usually the puppets that think everyone else is a puppet, go figure.
Excellent comment. Just think about it; how many lives has China's policy saved vs. the hundreds of thousands dead in the US? Sure there have been financial and social disruptions but I would say the restrictions have been worth it. Believe me, I'd like to return to HK and China sooner rather than later, but I believe the Chinese govt. will ease matters when it feels that its population is not endangered. Westerners who live...
Excellent comment. Just think about it; how many lives has China's policy saved vs. the hundreds of thousands dead in the US? Sure there have been financial and social disruptions but I would say the restrictions have been worth it. Believe me, I'd like to return to HK and China sooner rather than later, but I believe the Chinese govt. will ease matters when it feels that its population is not endangered. Westerners who live in a world that prioritizes enriching its elites as opposed to nurturing human capital may quibble but who cares?
China may have technically “saved more lives” than other countries so far (that won’t hold for much longer, by the way), but that is a moot point. The only meaningful measure of any country’s covid response is how fully and permanently life can return to pre-pandemic normal. In the absence of a return to normal, low mortality is meaningless. Delaying death is not necessarily the same thing as preserving life.
@Robert - your point is fair - however, evolution of humanity dictates that we don't keep returning to what we had before. That's where it breaks down. It is okay to move on to something different. Else we'd all be grunting and living in caves.
Moving on to something better might be worthwhile.
However, a biomedical surveillance state with mandatory masking and vaccination as a precondition to free movement is not “better” in any sense, least of all because as we’ve seen it has failed to stop the spread of the pathogens it ostensibly aims to stamp out.
Indeed, most of the people who berate me for wanting to return to 2019—for having already and irreversibly returned to 2019, as...
Moving on to something better might be worthwhile.
However, a biomedical surveillance state with mandatory masking and vaccination as a precondition to free movement is not “better” in any sense, least of all because as we’ve seen it has failed to stop the spread of the pathogens it ostensibly aims to stamp out.
Indeed, most of the people who berate me for wanting to return to 2019—for having already and irreversibly returned to 2019, as almost the entire human species has already done—are themselves guilty of nostalgia for early 2020. They loved the locked down world, and the moral superiority they felt because of their zeal to “stay home and (not) save lives.”
So no, the world will not “move on” to a medieval, regressive proto-religion that moves us backward instead of forward. Better luck next time—and take off that stupid mask.
You still have to do PCR tests and RATs after arriving HK. Still a bit troublesome!!!
I don't s'pose there's any thought to the mainland considering an arrival from HK as "pre-cleared," that would certainly incentivize people to go there...
There are plenty of non-COVID-related reasons one may be less keen to visit Hong Kong now than in 2019 as well...
It's moving in the right direction but too slowly! Hong Kong is losing ground to Singapore, and any further delay is going to cost more for them.
I transited in HKG just over 2 weeks ago, and they divided the airport into the "China zone" and the "rest of the world zone." I wonder would the policy change remove the "zoning" situation at HKG? Instead of spending 10 hours in Hong Kong, I spent...
It's moving in the right direction but too slowly! Hong Kong is losing ground to Singapore, and any further delay is going to cost more for them.
I transited in HKG just over 2 weeks ago, and they divided the airport into the "China zone" and the "rest of the world zone." I wonder would the policy change remove the "zoning" situation at HKG? Instead of spending 10 hours in Hong Kong, I spent it at The Pier, in which Cathay provided all the Cantonese food I craved.
Most shops and lounges at HKG are still close. It'll take a year or two for HKG to return to normal.
Mainland China is now wholeheartedly embracing COVID with everyone exercising a “not if but when” attitude towards encounter with virus.
Not visiting Hong Kong or anywhere that still requires testing. It is nearly 2023 not 2020. Move on, communists.
I booked my ticket a few days ago before the announcement