China's National Health Commission (NHC) is set to change entry requirements for inbound travel to the Peoples Republic of China from January 8.

Civic protests over the country’s strict domestic ‘zero-COVID’ policy, have rocked the establishment, moving China to ease COVID-related regulations earlier this month. The population has been angered by the central government’s high-handed approach to the pandemic, as it shut down whole cities and sections of cities if so many as a handful of cases were identified in an area.

The easing of restrictions has led to an explosion in cases, and several news organs report that China is experiencing the world’s largest COVID-19 outbreak, raising concerns among public-health officials worldwide. Almost 37 million people are believed to have been infected on one single day last week, according to estimates from China’s own NHC.

Quarantine falls

Inbound travellers had previously been subject to mandatory quarantine of, at the most extreme stage, 10 days in a quarantine hotel. This will no longer be required.

The latest change will kick in in January and, from then, visitors will only have to show a certificate of a negative PCR test result taken in the 48 hours before travel but they will not need to submit it ahead of time.

With this loosening up, tourism operators across the globe now wait for the Chinese outbound tourism industry to swing into action. The Chinese NHC has declared that the outbound travel of Chinese citizens will be resumed “in an orderly manner".

But tourists from China and those inbound tourism companies, DMCs and hotels eager to engage with Chinese tourism again, might face new obstacles. The huge Chinese market may take a lot longer to get into motion than operators across the globe desire – the new fear is that the pandemic sweeping through China will sweep into the rest of the world, possibly with new variants, and it’s all exacerbated by opacity in China’s reporting.

As a result, several countries are starting to implement special entry requirements for visitors from China. Some countries include Hong Kong and Macau, giving passengers leaving from those two territories the same treatment.

Special regs for pax from China

Japan will have special requirements for travellers arriving from mainland China from December 30, with travellers coming into Japan from China being required to test negative upon arrival. Reuters reports that positive cases will be obliged to quarantine for a week in a designated facility. Japan is to implement a cap on the number of flights from China.

The UK has announced that a pre-travel negative PCR test certificate will be necessary for travellers departing from China and entering the UK.

For the same reasons, the US too has new precautions for people travelling from China, Macau and Hong Kong. From January 5, passengers flying directly from China (including Hong Kong and Macau) to the US, will require a pre-travel negative COVID test certificate. This will also apply to China pax entering through popular third-country gateways, including Seoul, Toronto and Vancouver.

Italy has two new requirements of pax departing from China – a test before travel and another one on arrival. But EU officials have rejected a call by the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, for the entire EU to test all air passengers from China.

Malaysia has imposed new tracking and surveillance measures and India has implemented random testing of 2% of all arriving international passengers as it seeks to minimise the risk of new variants entering the country via airports.

Taiwan, which anticipates tens of thousands of people visiting for the Chinese New Year later in January, will start testing arrivals from mainland China.

Philippines Transport Secretary, Jaime Bautista, called for COVID-19 measures on December 28, including testing on inbound travellers from China.

The Australian government has told British publication, the Guardian that it is monitoring the global situation, and travel arrangements for Australians and visitors to the country are unchanged.

No African countries have yet announced any changes to their entry regulations for China passengers.

Despite the deterrents to their travel plans, the Chinese have a pent-up hunger for travel. Bookings for outbound flights from mainland China are reported by trip.com to have jumped 254% on Tuesday, December 27, on the previous day’s count, just 24 hours after the announcement on the loosening of restrictions.

China has said it will resume issuing new passports and Hong Kong travel permits to mainland residents. Express checkpoints on the borders with Hong Kong and Macau are to resume, while applications by foreigners to extend or renew visas will also recommence on January 8.

Hong Kong has kept in step with China throughout the pandemic and it plans to reopen its borders with China before mid-January, relaxing its entry rules, scrapping limits on gatherings, and jettisoning proof of vaccination for entry to venues. Hong Kong will also no longer require passengers to take two PCR tests after arrival but it does require passengers to be fully vaccinated and take a pre-departure COVID test.

Earlier in December, China narrowed its definition of a COVID-related death down to encompass only cases that have died from pneumonia or respiratory failure. Then, on December 25, the Chinese NHC announced it would no longer publish daily figures for COVID cases and deaths, according to www.france24.com.