Each week, TODAY's long-running Big Read series delves into the trends and issues that matter. This week, we look at how the pandemic-stricken tourism sector is responding to Singapore’s tentative easing of border restrictions. This is a shortened version of the full feature,​ which can be found here.

• Tourism companies in Singapore agree that relaxing border restrictions to Germany and Brunei is a good start to revive the sector
• Some outbound travel agencies have started ramping up their operations and come up with tour packages to Germany
• However, most tour operators here are wary of prematurely scaling up
• They cite the unpredictability of how the Covid-19 situation would evolve in other countries, as well as the cancellation of the air travel bubble between Hong Kong and Singapore
• Meanwhile, many are doing what they can to sustain themselves and some have even started selling food and beverage items online

SINGAPORE — There were cheers and jubilation at The Travel Corporation’s (TTC) office just over two weeks ago — a rare sight for tour agencies in the past 18 months as the travel sector has ground to a halt amid border and travel restrictions around the world to stop the spread of the Covid-19 virus.

The reason? The Singapore authorities had just announced that the city-state would be setting up Vaccinated Travel Lanes for fully vaccinated travellers from Germany and Brunei.

Recounting the scene in the office that day, Mr Nicholas Lim, chief executive officer of TTC’s Asia office, said that they immediately saw an increase in enquiries after the announcement, which resulted in two bookings to Germany that weekend.

“It was to our surprise as well… (Tour bookings) is something which hasn’t happened in a while. We were doing high-fives and all,” said Mr Lim.

Such optimism, however, is not shared by everyone in the industry, even as they see the easing of the travel restrictions as a good start.

Most tour operators TODAY spoke to are unsure about its impact, and many are cautious about prematurely scaling up their operations.

Having learned their lesson from the ill-fated Singapore-Hong Kong air travel bubble, some outbound travel agencies say they prefer to wait and see.

Some, in fact, have opted to continue remaining shut for the time being due to the uncertainty, including travel agency Universal Travel Corporation (UTC). 

On Aug 19, Singapore announced that fully vaccinated travellers from Germany and Brunei — as well as all travellers from Hong Kong and Macau, regardless of their vaccination status — are no longer required to serve stay-home notice (SHN) when they arrive here. The move is part of Singapore’s road map to reopen its economy as it adjusts to living with an endemic Covid-19.

Singapore will welcome its first fully vaccinated visitors from Germany and Brunei from Sept 8 under the new arrangement.

Travellers from Singapore to Brunei under the reciprocal green lane arrangement are subject to certain restrictions.

For Germany, it already allows travellers from Singapore to enter the country without quarantine — therefore, Singapore’s move means that fully vaccinated travellers can travel between both countries without serving any quarantine or SHN. However, they will have to undergo at least four Covid-19 polymerase chain (PCR) reaction tests.

Singapore Airlines (SIA) will be servicing five flights each week that take only fully vaccinated passengers, while German airline Lufthansa will be operating two.

TENTATIVE AND CAUTIOUS

Before setting up vaccinated travel lanes with Germany and Brunei, Singapore had tried to establish an air travel bubble with Hong Kong, which would have allowed people to travel between the two cities without serving quarantine.

Mr Kliff Ang, director of Asia Travel Group, said that the industry was “quite excited” when plans for the travel bubble were mooted late last year.

But it was eventually scrapped after being suspended twice due to a rise in coronavirus cases in both cities.

When it was suspended the first time, Mr Ang said his company ended up having more administrative work, including refunding money paid for air tickets and hotels to customers.

The “start-stop” nature of the travel bubble plan with Hong Kong serves as a cautionary tale for Mr Ang, who felt that he should not dive into ramping up operations even with the launch of the travel lanes with Germany and Brunei.

Developments around the globe are also not helping, as attempts by other countries to revive travel have not produced the desired results.

In July, New Zealand suspended its air travel bubble scheme with Australia amid rising coronavirus cases.

Dr Kevin Cheong, executive director of Sentosa 4D AdventureLand, said the road to recovery will be very bumpy.

“It will be open, close, open, close. Tighten again. This is the part where many of the businesses are thinking, ‘If I were to scale up at a time you tighten, we have a problem’,” he said.

Other local tour operators noted that German tourists typically do not come to Singapore for a holiday. It is more a short stopover for them before they head off to other destinations in the region, such as Phuket or Indonesia’s Bali. 

They cited the onerous requirement of visitors having to do four PCR tests as being a deterrent for travellers.

Tour operators also said that the 755 travellers from Germany and Brunei approved to enter Singapore under the new travel lane are insignificant and would not make a substantial difference for the industry.

For the whole of 2019, there were 19.1 million visitor arrivals in Singapore, which translated to about 52,000 visitors per day.

Dr Cheong said the tourism sector will probably not even hit 30 per cent of what it was before the pandemic with this current easing of travel restrictions.

“Let’s be real about it. Don’t jump on the bandwagon and scale up overnight. It will kill you faster.” 

Transport Minister S Iswaran had said earlier that Singapore is “starting small with two countries” to ensure the people’s safety and well-being. “We will not throw caution to the wind,” he stressed. 

WAYS AND MEANS TO STAY AFLOAT

Most inbound tour operators will thus continue to focus largely on tailoring their tours for local residents for now and would not be ramping up their operations anytime soon.

Their pivot to domestic tours is the result of a campaign by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), which started at the end of last year, to drive domestic spending to support the tourism sector. Citizens would also be getting a S$100 SingapoRediscover Voucher as part of this drive.

While these changes have helped many tour operators to sustain themselves, they pointed out that demand has dropped since May due to the return of tighter restrictions during Phase 2 (Heightened Alert). And the numbers have not gone back up even though the curbs were subsequently relaxed.

These local tours are also not sustainable in the long-run.

Mr Samson Tan, chief executive officer at GTMC Travel, said he is organising tours for 10 to 20 local residents a month now, compared to 1,000 tourists before the pandemic.

While these local tours have at least helped “a little bit here and there”, his company is still making losses.

Mr Ang from Asia Travel Group said he has decided not to pivot into doing local tours as the market is too small, and that it does not make sense switching to something different temporarily.

To boost their bottom line, some travel agencies have even started selling food and beverage items.

Since June, CTC Travel has been selling items that tourists typically buy when they go overseas, such as Hokkaido sesame oil, said Mr Chen Bin, its chief executive officer.

Their initial reliance on domestic tours for income was scuppered when Singapore tightened its restrictions, and the company decided to sell such products via online live streaming. 

It has been more than 18 months since Singapore reported its first Covid-19 case on Jan 23 last year.

According to STB figures, 148 travel agents had ceased operations between February 2020 and August this year, and there are currently 1,119 licenced travel agents in Singapore. On average, 120 to 140 businesses cease their travel agent licence voluntarily every year for various reasons.

Mr Kenneth Lim, STB’s director of travel agents and tourist guides, said 40 out of the 148 agencies which shuttered in the past 18 months or so cited Covid-19 as the reason for their closure.

“The remainder cited various non-Covid-19 related reasons such as change in business focus and/or retirement of the founder of the travel agency, especially the smaller agencies,” he said.

However, the picture on the ground may be worse than what is reflected by STB’s statistics.

Some travel agencies told TODAY that they have generally been hibernating for several months at a time amid the long-drawn pandemic. 

UTC, for instance, has been temporarily shut since May with its staff on no-pay leave. It was closed from April last year till November, when it reopened to run local tours for about six months before shutting again due to Phase 2 (Heightened Alert).

Mr Chen said that nearly 90 per cent of CTC Travel’s employees are also on no-pay leave, with many redeployed to work as safe distancing ambassadors or in hospitals, leaving just the heads of department running a lean operation.

PREPARING FOR EVENTUAL RECOVERY 

Despite the uncertainties, the tour operators TODAY spoke to are doing all they can to hang in there till the travel market eventually recovers.

Outbound tour agency Actxplorer is working with a tech company to come up with virtual tours for customers that involve interaction and augmented reality, said its co-founder Melvyn Mak.

He hopes his customers will be willing to pay for such a product, adding that they will be able to get a discount when they go on the actual tour in the future, when borders reopen further.

“We are thinking about how the future will be. We don’t want to waste effort during this time when we have downtime. It helps us to rethink how travel experience should be,” he said.

Beyond that, tour operators are also making preparations to ensure that they will have the capacity and skills required to meet demand when travel returns.

After more than one year of not leading travel groups, it’s easy for tour guides to “become rusty”, said Mr Stanley Foo, owner of Oriental Travel and Tours.

He tries to keep them “warm” by getting some tour guides to conduct local tours.

But for director of Asia Travel Group’s Mr Ang, he finds it hard to plan for his future manpower needs as it is unclear what the Covid-19 guidelines would be at the point when travel demand returns.

In addition, small-sized tour groups consisting of just one family unit may be the new norm, instead of big tour buses.

“(The situation) is fluid. Whenever there is change, the whole thing has to be revised. I think everybody wants to know whether we can go back the old way,” he said.

Another uncertainty is that tourism workers who have left the industry during Covid-19 may no longer want to return to the sector.

“In two to three years,  where are we going to get our workforce from? That to me is a big problem,” said Dr Cheong.

STB’s Mr Lim said that tourism businesses have been pivoting their manpower and business operations to meet local demand throughout the pandemic, and this will ensure they are well-placed to support the sector’s recovery when mass international travel returns.

“At the same time, many of these new SingapoRediscover Voucher offerings can also be easily adapted for international audiences when travel resumes,” he added.

While most tour operators are realistic enough to know that introducing special travel lanes for a handful of countries is not a real game changer, Mr Mak said the slight reopening of borders is a signal of the Government’s intention, and will get people to start travelling.

With an eye on the big picture, he added: “We cannot not do anything… Airlines will be enabled. A number of travel agencies are booking tours to Germany. I think it’s encouraging.”