How Delta Air Lines broke Australia’s hopes for Singapore’s tourism bubble

Just like the flight corridor with New Zealand (although at least that route has taken off), the future of any travel bubble between Australia and Asia may have burst before it even begins.

As the Delta variant became rampant in parts of Australia, our friend across the ditch quickly closed the corridor for at least two months.

Before the latest outbreak in New South Wales, Australians were free to cross the Tasman Strait without needing to be quarantined upon arrival in New Zealand.

But now, as several states have responded to the recent coronavirus outbreak, the entire country has been cut off from our neighbors.

Currently, more than 14 million people across the country are blocked. People are worried that future bubbles with countries such as Singapore and Japan will be in danger, because we—they—are fighting against the highly contagious delta virus.

related:New Zealand suspends travel bubble with Australia due to Covid-19 case

The federal government proposes that after New Zealand, the corridor between Australia, Japan and Singapore will become the next plan in 2021, and then open to the rest of the world in mid-2022.

As some countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, adhere to the Covid zero strategy, or at least the Covid goal of almost zero-the desire to eliminate the virus at all costs may put future bubbles in trouble.

Although Singapore has stopped disclosing details of every new Covid-19 case found in the community as the country moves towards a new stage in the fight against the pandemic, it is understood that through other measurements, they recorded 117 new cases on Sunday. Of locally transmitted cases, including 46 related cases to the growing cluster of Jurong Fishing Port.

Cases in Japan have surged by 20%, and the Olympic host country recorded 4,204 new cases on Friday — an increase of 785 from the same day last week.

related: As foreign owners abandon the resort, the Whitsundays are in ruins

According to Bloomberg News, Earlier this month, a poll conducted by global travel data provider OAG found that about half of the respondents believed that tourism recovery in Asia would only happen before July 2022, that is, a full year later.

“Personally, I think this is close to optimism,” said OAG chief analyst John Grant. “Asia is indeed worrying. The summer of 2023 is a more realistic assessment.”

Earlier this month, Australian Trade and Tourism Minister Dan Tehan stated that the travel bubble with Singapore that was originally scheduled to begin this week will not begin until the end of 2021.

Mr. Tehan said that travel in the next few years, including opening more bubbles, will rely on vaccine passports.

“Speaking of the bubble we saw, it has been postponed due to the third wave of the virus,” he told the media. Sydney Morning Herald.

“This is something we hope to continue to make progress. It will be part of the discussion so that when the time is right, we can get medical experts to respond to this. Singapore is still the next potential development direction. The future travel bubble.

“It’s difficult to give it a time frame, but when you see the plan that Singapore has already made and put it together with the plan announced by the prime minister, hopefully it may be at the end of the year that you can look at the tourism bubble in Singapore.”