In a bid to entice more healthcare travellers to the country, Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC) has collaborated with Tune Protect Group to introduce a Covid-19 travel protection plan for foreign nationals seeking medical advice and treatments in private hospitals in Malaysia.
Known as the Covid Travel Pass+, there are two types of plans: the basic and premium plan. The basic plan provides medical expenses and hospitalisation coverage due to Covid-19 of up to RM100,000 (US$23,849); and the premium plan, up to RM350,000. Both plans also come with a bereavement allowance of RM10,000.
Benefits of the travel insurance plan include trip cancellation, flight on arrival delay, loss or damage to checked-in baggage, and Covid-19 diagnosis quarantine allowance (RM350 per day up to RM2,450), among others.
Rohit Nambiar, group CEO, Tune Protect, said in a press release: “Malaysia is recognised for its award-winning healthcare services and with travelling restrictions loosening up, we are expecting the number of healthcare travellers to increase.
“With this, we are pleased to collaborate with MHTC as we believe in going where customers want us to be. The timely collaboration provides convenience and worry-free travel experience for healthcare travellers seeking to access medical treatment and advice here in Malaysia.”
Mohd Daud Mohd Arif, CEO of MHTC, said the launch of the travel insurance plan is part of the council’s strategy “to demonstrate Malaysia’s strengths as a safe and trusted destination, and offer healthcare travellers accessible and affordable protection plans as the country begins to welcome international visitors back to our shores”.
Launched last week by Tune Protect Group, the Covid Travel Pass+ is designed to help foreign travellers entering Langkawi in Malaysia and destinations in Thailand meet the mandatory Covid-19 insurance coverage requirements set by the respective governments – which is a minimum of US$80,000 for Langkawi and US$50,000 for Thailand.
The service is currently available to foreigners flying AirAsia into Langkawi and destinations in Thailand, and will later be rolled out to other destinations.
Eligible travellers can purchase the Covid Travel Pass+ when booking their flight tickets on the AirAsia super app. Post-flight purchase subscription is also available prior to departure.
Singapore’s move to further ease border controls as well as social restrictions have led to an uptick in hotel enquires and bookings from countries with a vaccinated travel lane (VTL) with the city-state.
To date, Singapore has launched VTLs with Australia, Brunei, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, and the US and will be commencing with Malaysia, Finland, Sweden, Indonesia and India from November 29. There are intentions to do the same with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates from December 6 – bringing the total VTL countries to an eventual 21.
According to a Marina Bay Sands spokesperson, the integrated resort saw an overall increase in bookings from overseas travellers from VTL countries, particularly Australia, the US, Malaysia, the UK and South Korea, with most of them staying over the peak period of November and December. The bulk of these bookings was made by FIT travellers, and many came through OTAs.
Pan Pacific Hotels Group’s properties in Singapore also saw a slight growth in reservations by inbound travellers, revealed Cinn Tan, chief sales & marketing officer.
“As of October 2021, international travellers from the VTL markets contribute between five to eight per cent of our total room nights booked. The top markets we are receiving bookings from are the US, Germany, the UK and South Korea,” Tan said.
Also seeing brighter days for the upcoming holiday season is Charis Choi, director of sales and marketing at Grand Hyatt Singapore. “With the re-opening of international travel, there has been an increase in demand and a better pace than months prior,” she said, adding that bookings streamed in from the US, Australia, Switzerland, South Korea, Germany, and France.
Over at The Fullerton Hotel Singapore and The Fullerton Bay Hotel Singapore, enquiries have climbed on the back of the VTL news, with guests being a mix of travellers and Singaporeans who are returning primarily from the UK and the US. General manager Giovanni Viterale expects bookings and enquiries to increase over the next few weeks, especially as travellers plan their year-end getaways.
Slow recovery
While the mood among Singapore hoteliers is more positive today, Singapore’s travel and tourism stakeholders agree that inbound improvements are still muted.
Allen Khoo, resident manager at Shangri-La Singapore, observed that while enquiries from VTL guests have gone up, there were no spikes in bookings. In fact, holiday season bookings are still dominated by domestic demand.
Potential for vast improvements in Singapore’s inbound arrivals is hampered by a current quota of 10,000 travellers daily for all VTL countries.
Another obstacle to inbound travel recovery, according to Steven Ler, president of National Association of Travel Agents Singapore, is that most of the VTLs involve long-haul travel – markets that typically package Singapore as a twin destination with another South-east Asian country.
With current cross-border restrictions remaining within South-east Asia, these long-haul travellers can only spend their time in Singapore, which makes the trip “a costly attempt”, explained Ler.
“However, the dynamics would be different when Australia and more neighbouring countries open up,” he added.
Association of Singapore Attractions’ chairman, Kevin Cheong, also believed that the first wave of VTL travellers will primarily consist of business travellers, returning expatriates and long-term pass holders and those visiting friends and relatives in Singapore.
“The usual leisure travellers could still be tentative due to the availability of seats and costs of travel, and may be holding off till more restrictions are lifted,” he said.
Indeed, Kwee Wei-Lin, president, Singapore Hotel Association, pointed out that Singapore’s safe management measures will need to return to pre-pandemic level so that tourists can enjoy authentic local experiences without restrictions.
“Relative to countries with less stringent public health protocols, such as mandatory wearing of face masks and dining restrictions, Singapore’s appeal as a travel destination is compromised. Many of the countries participating in the VTL scheme have less stringent controls, therefore we may not see significant arrivals until Singapore’s visitor experience improves.”
Pre-Christmas flight bookings at all-time-high
Flight ticketing data collected by ForwardKeys indicated a spike in booking momentum from late-October, peaking in mid-December to reach 18 per cent of 2019 levels.
“Arrivals in the week before Christmas are at an all-time-high since the pandemic. Arrivals from the US have reached 35 per cent of 2019 levels, with Europe trailing behind at 28 per cent”, Jameson Wong, ForwardKeys’ vice president clients & partnerships APAC, elaborated.
Arrivals from Australia and South Korea are at 26 per cent and 18 per cent of 2019 levels respectively.
Positive movements in demand for flights into Singapore were seen since August 19, 2021, when the first VTL announcement was made, with global inbound flight arrivals into Singapore hovering at five to 10 per cent of 2019 levels.
Nancy Dai, ForwardKeys insights expert, described the month-on-month uptake from August to October as “steady and encouraging”: inbound flight tickets issued for arrivals into Singapore in August were 107 per cent of July; September’s issues were 108 per cent of August; and October’s issues were 285 per cent of September.
Bookings from the US, the UK and Australia led the recovery, observed Dai. In October, flight arrivals from the US rose 13-fold, while the UK and Australia improved by 8.6 times and 3.6 times.
Further defining the inbound booking profile, ForwardKeys noted that 28 per cent of flight arrivals into Singapore in November and December are for single pax per booking, 31 per cent are for two pax, and 41 per cent are for more than three.
The leisure segment dominates the profile of travellers on flights on the books for the period of November and December, making up 67 per cent of the total – unchanged compared to pre-pandemic in 2019. However, the Visit Friends & Relatives and Expatriate segments have inflated to reach 14 per cent, compared to three per cent in the same period in 2019.
The average length of stay has increased from 6.5 days pre-pandemic to 11.7 days, with arrivals from Australia spending an average of 7.3 days and those from the US and Europe, 18 days.
The bulk of bookings was made directly with airlines, at 61 per cent, compared to 17 per cent in 2019. – Additional reporting by Karen Yue