China has lifted quarantine requirements for inbound travellers, ending almost three years of self-imposed isolation even as the country battles a surge in Covid cases.
Beijing last month began a dramatic dismantling of a hardline virus strategy that had enforced mandatory quarantines and gruelling lockdowns.
The containment policy has tanked China’s economy and sparked nationwide protests.
In the final unravelling of those rules, from Sunday inbound travellers to China are no longer required to quarantine.
Since March 2020, all arrivals had been forced to undergo isolation at centralised government facilities. This decreased from three weeks to one week in June, and to five days in November.
Chinese people rushed to plan trips abroad after officials last month announced that quarantine would be dropped, sending inquiries on popular travel websites soaring.
But the expected surge in visitors has led more than a dozen countries to impose mandatory Covid tests on travellers from the world’s most populous nation as it battles its worst-ever outbreak.
The outbreak is forecast to worsen as China enters the lunar new year holiday this month, during which millions are expected to travel from hard-hit megacities to the countryside to visit vulnerable older relatives.
China on Saturday marked the first day of “chun yun”, the 40-day period of lunar new year travel known pre-pandemic as the world’s largest annual migration of people.
This lunar new year public holiday, which officially runs from 21 January, will be the first since 2020 without domestic travel restrictions.
China’s ministry of transport said on Friday that it expected more than 2 billion passengers to take trips over the next 40 days.
In China’s southern semi-autonomous city of Hong Kong, Sunday will also see a major relaxation of stringent cross-border travel restrictions with the Chinese mainland.
Hong Kong’s recession-hit economy is desperate to reconnect with its biggest source of growth, and families separated by the boundary are looking forward to reunions over the lunar new year.
Up to 50,000 Hong Kong residents will be able to cross the border daily at three land checkpoints after registering online.
Another 10,000 will be allowed to enter by sea, air or bridges without needing to register in advance, the city’s leader, John Lee, said.
More than 280,000 in total had registered to make the journey within a day of the new rules being announced.
But Hong Kong travellers will still need to present a negative nucleic acid test result obtained no more than 48 hours before departure.
Immigration authorities will start issuing permits for mainlanders to travel to Hong Kong and Macau “according to the epidemic situation and service capacities”, the city has said.
Hong Kong’s flag carrier Cathay Pacific has said it will more than double its flights to the Chinese mainland.
Across Asia, tourist hubs are preparing for a surge in Chinese visitors.
At a crepe stand in Seoul, Son Kyung-rak said he was making plans to deal with a flood of tourists.
“We’re looking to hire and preparing to stock up,” the 24-year-old said in Seoul’s popular downtown Myeongdong district. “Chinese tourists are our main customers, so the more the merrier.”
In Tokyo, caricaturist Masashi Higashitani was dusting off his Chinese language skills as he prepared for more holidaymakers. But while he said he was thrilled about China’s reopening, he admitted some apprehension.
“I wonder if an influx of too many of them might overwhelm our capacity. I’m also worried that we need to be more careful about anti-virus measures.”
Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report