People wearing face masks pass the Marina Bay Sands hotel during the coronavirus disease outbreak, in Singapore, on Oct 28, 2021.MANILA - Two years after tourism in Southeast Asia ground to a halt, travellers are getting back on planes as entry and Covid-19 quarantine rules are lifted in the region, but a full recovery will be slow and some long-time hotspots are falling out of favour.
The ForwardKeys data showed Singapore and Philippines bookings were at 72 per cent and 65 per cent of 2019 levels, respectively, while Thailand was at just 24 per cent. Asia, though, is lagging a recovery in other regions including Europe, which eased restrictions months ago. But that was just nine per cent of arrivals in February 2020 and included an influx of holders of work visas from Malaysia and India.
More than a quarter of the 40 million tourists who had visited Thailand in 2019 were Chinese. This year, the country expects between five million and ten million international arrivals from places like Malaysia and other Southeast Asian neighbours.