In China’s Covid-hit tropical paradise, stranded tourists grapple with cancelled flights, rule changes
- More than 27,000 of 150,000 stranded visitors have gone back as of Sunday, Hainan provincial authorities say
- Flight uncertainties add to worries for trapped tourists, along with new pre-departure quarantine and multiple negative test requirements
However, frequent flight cancellations, and extra nucleic acid test and quarantine requirements are making exit difficult, even though authorities promised a gradual restoration of flight capacity for provincial capital Haikou and the top tourist city of Sanya.
The island province, often billed as “China’s Hawaii”, has recorded more than 8,880 coronavirus infections this month, including 1,163 reported on Monday, mostly in Sanya.
Emergency travel restrictions were imposed in Sanya and Haikou days after the first cases were reported in early August, with trains and flights cancelled, and public transport suspended as part of China’s dynamic zero-Covid policy, which seeks to curb transmission chains at the earliest. The measures left two-fifths of some 80,000 tourists in Sanya trapped in their hotels, according to the beach city’s deputy mayor.
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80,000 tourists trapped in ‘China’s Hawaii’ in latest Covid-19 outbreak
A total of 27,211 travellers were sent home from both cities via 140 flights by Sunday, Hainan health authorities said. More flights were planned for the next three days, Wang Liming, a provincial tourism official, said on Monday.
However, new pre-departure quarantine rules and multiple negative test requirements are proving a hurdle for trapped tourists, many of whom had travelled to the tropical island to celebrate the lifting of coronavirus lockdowns in their hometowns, including Shanghai.
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Weng Yu, 36, a restaurant owner from Hebei province, and his seven-year-old son have been unable to leave their hotel in Haikou since they arrived on August 7. Learning that airport services were back to normal on Saturday, he booked a return flight for Sunday, only to find it had been cancelled.
“The departure and destination airports are operating as normal. I don’t know who is stopping us from going home,” Weng said.
People wishing to leave Haikou by train or ferry must check into one of the 53 hotels or “health stations” for three days of quarantine first, local authorities announced on Sunday. But passengers must apply to be allowed to leave and also pay for their quarantine stay.
Wang, a 25-year-old from Guangdong province who came to Haikou with his two young children to visit relatives, is also among the stranded.
The ferry service that can take them back to Guangdong is closed. Worse, constantly changing travel policies are making their stay longer and more expensive.
Travellers must now submit as many as five negative Covid-19 tests from the previous seven days, up from just two tests over three days earlier. Health station applications and costs are also adding to the frustration.
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“Every time I thought I had met the requirements to leave, there was a new policy,” Wang said.
He keeps calling 12345, the government hotline, trying to catch up with the latest change in policy. But he has not been able to get through the past few days.
“It’s so hard for us to leave,” he said. “I feel very disappointed and helpless.”
Sheng Changsheng, 21, came to Haikou on August 8 to take part in a chip design competition. The technology undergraduate from Anhui found his flight on Monday cancelled, after not being allowed to leave the hotel since he arrived.
Sheng is now waiting for his new flight on Thursday, while taking nucleic acid tests every day to meet the five-seven requirement.
“I hope it can take off on time so that I can leave Hainan this time,” he said.
