- 36 hotels across Hong Kong picked for initial phase of scheme
- Scheme is expected to boost business for struggling hotels
- Hoteliers claim inconsistency in selection process
Hong Kong has established a quarantine hotels scheme to support her intensified infection control measures against a surge in Covid-19 community cases. Since December 22, all travellers arriving in Hong Kong from countries outside of China must undergo a 14-day compulsory quarantine at designated quarantine hotels.
Designated quarantine hotels will only receive quarantined travellers who will arrive in appointed transportation provided by the government.
According to Hong Kong’s Food and Health Bureau, invitations to join the scheme were issued to more than 2,000 hotels and guesthouses with valid hotel licences or guesthouse licenses. Some 100 applications were received, and 36 from nine different districts were eventually qualified to form the first batch of designated quarantine hotels.
A bureau spokesperson told TTG Asia that the government sought participation from different hotel groups and properties with varied price ranges.
“We primarily consider whether the design, facilities and operations of the hotels meet the government’s infection control requirements. Other factors include location, room rate, number of rooms offered by the hotels; they must also pass the inspection conducted by the Department of Health and other relevant departments…”, the spokesperson further explained.
A copy of the invitation letter provided to TTG Asia by hoteliers showed other requirements – the hotel has to be in a standalone building, centrally managed and have individual rooms with toilet/bathroom without the need to share daily-use facilities; and the hotel operator must close all ancillary guest facilities (such as gym, spa and restaurant), and reject appointments or bookings for facilities for purposes other than lodging for quarantine guests.
Commenting on the first batch of designated quarantine hotels, the spokesperson said room rates ranged from HK$300 (US$38.70) for non-suite room types to several thousands for suites, with 80 per cent of rooms offering rates of under HK$1,000.
“We will consider allowing more hotels to join the scheme if situation warrants,” the spokesperson added.
Business booster and disruptor
As wage subsidies for the travel and tourism industry have concluded end-November 2020, the quarantine hotels scheme is seen as a lifeline for hotels struggling to cope with severely reduced business due to the ongoing pandemic and travel restrictions.
Hotels contracted under the scheme will obtain quarantine travellers for 60 calendar days, with rates set on a full-board basis. The government is committed to a minimum guarantee of 50 per cent room nights during the contracted period and at the rate of 70 per cent of the hotel’s non-suite rate per room night or HK$600, whichever is lower.
However, the scheme is not palatable to all hoteliers.
Local chain Tang’s Living Group, which owns 15 hotels across the destination, has chosen to skip programme due to a desire to protect its guests and employees. “With long-stay being one of our key pillars of business, ensuring a safe, healthy and comfortable environment for all perpetually is of paramount importance,” explained the company spokesperson.
Likewise, Hyatt Centric Victoria Harbour Hong Kong has also chosen to prioritise its staff and existing guests. Long-stay residents account for 20 to 30 per cent of the hotel’s occupancy each month, revealed general manager Andy Chang. Being in the quarantine hotels scheme would mean inconveniencing these guests as they would have to find alternative accommodation, he said.
Confusion abound
Despite the published selection guidelines, some Hong Kong hoteliers said the process had been anything but clear.
A hotelier who asked for anonymity, said that although her property had experience in serving voluntary quarantine guests earlier in 2020, her application to be a designated quarantine hotel was rejected.
She said the rejection was due to a failure to meet certain requirements, such as not being in a standalone building. “The result made me so frustrated and confused, as some of the designated quarantine hotels (do not meet the criteria). The Landmark Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong, for instance, is approved but it is attached to a mall. Another approved hotel, Four Points by Sheraton Hong Kong Tung Chung, was not even opened (at the point of selection), and has no experience in handling (quarantine cases),” the hotelier said.
In the case of Four Points by Sheraton Hong Kong Tung Chung, the hotel expressed in a press statement that it has “passed the infection control inspection by the Department of Health and other relevant departments including the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department and the Buildings Department” and that it is compliant with all health guidelines. Precautions are also in place to protect its staff, such as by way of providing protective gear to all associates and have them undergo Covid-19 tests every 14 days.
Girish Jhunjhnuwala, founder and chief executive of Hong Kong-based Ovolo Hotels, told TTG Asia: “Although Mojo Nomad Aberdeen owned by the group has been included (in the scheme), it is the one least suited (for quarantine).”
He explained that Ovolo Hotels was among the first hotel chains to provide quarantine stays for returning residents since March 2020, chalking up more than 1,500 quarantine stays and 21,000 quarantine room nights of experience. The properties have earned numerous positive feedback from guests for their “gold standard quarantine service”.
Despite this, none of the experienced quarantine hotels in the group were qualified for the quarantine hotels scheme. The government decision has cost Ovolo Hotels about 8,000 room nights of quarantine stays between December and March 2021. The company has launched a petition seeking support to be included on the quarantine list, and has received high-profile support including from the Australian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong.
Similarly, OZO Wesley Hong Kong, which also accommodated quarantine travellers earlier in the year, has been left out of the approved list of hotels. ONYX Hospitality Group, area general manager Hong Kong, Annie Shum, commented: “With many hotels already offering quarantine services, we are on the government’s reserve list and are ready to be at service at short notice.”
Yet another gripe arising from the scheme, according to another Ovolo spokesperson, is the government’s failure to abide by its earlier indication that only one hotel per group would be appointed.
It was pointed out that Magnificent Hotel Investments, which operates Best Westerns, Ramada and Grand City properties, has six hotels qualified for the programme. Far East Consortium, which operates Dorsett properties and the Lan Kwai Fong Hotel @ Kau U Fong, has four qualified hotels. Three of Regal Hotel Group’s properties are also qualified. Altogether, the three hotel groups supply 5,366 rooms to the programme, making up almost half of the total inventory.
Jhunjhnuwala also highlighted cases of price gauging by certain designated quarantine hotels. Local Chinese-language newspaper, Ming Pao, had on December 22 reported on such incidents, citing a family that had their booking rates revised from HK$12,180 prior to the announcement of the scheme, to HK$23,800 after the hotel had made it to the list.
With these many concerns around the selection and enforcement process, Jhunjhnuwala said a review was necessary.
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Shifts in guest touchpoints
2020 will go down in the history books as the air transport industry’s most turbulent year to date, with massive fluxes in passenger volumes globally due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Runways emulating plane graveyards served as a visceral reminder of the vulnerable economics of the air transport industry.
Emerging from government-imposed travel bans and nationwide lockdowns during the first half of the year was not enough to prompt travelers to return to the skies en masse. After showing some positive signs over the northern hemisphere summer months, global passenger traffic at the end of November 2020 slumped back down to 48 per cent year-on-year (YoY) from 2019, according to SITA data. Regaining passenger confidence has become a critical factor for airlines to weather the ongoing economic storm.
Reasons to be hopeful
No territory is left unscathed by the impact of Covid-19 and many western countries are buckling into their second wave response protocols with lockdowns reinstated in the UK, Europe, and parts of the US, much to the fatigue of struggling businesses and citizens.
Despite the bleak travel outlook for the 2020 holiday season in western countries, there are reasons to be hopeful for 2021. Fringe and emerging technologies that were sidelined during the previous decade of industry growth are now being examined with fervent scrutiny to evaluate their efficacy in solving crucial Covid-19 challenges.
For example, Health ETAs (Electronic Travel Authority), where electronic verification of a passenger’s health status is required upon entry to a country, look set to be commonplace by next year. Their usage will become standardised as new Covid-19 vaccines are made available in 2021.
Accelerated digitisation
Increasing passenger safety, boosting passenger confidence, and making airport and airline operations significantly more efficient, adaptable, and intelligent is the new blueprint for survival, and eventually, growth. Significant steps in these areas have already been taken.
Despite being synonymous with stalled economies and cancelled events, 2020 was a year of accelerated technology adoption across the air transport industry.
From head-mounted thermal scanning devices to technology-supported social distancing measures, new technologies have seeped into our airports and changed the passenger experience. That pace of innovation adoption sets a scene for rapid industry transformation over the next few years and will force a historically slow-moving industry into action.
The pandemic has prompted a new focus on trust. The industry must regain the trust of passengers, while airport and airline workers must trust the measures taken and the environments they are working in are sufficient to keep them safe.
David Lavorel, CEO of SITA at Airports and Borders, plots a new course for aviation’s recovery in 2021 and predicts a smarter, safer, and more sustainable travel industry fit for people and planet. Here are the six technology trends set to underpin this metamorphosis.
1. Advanced self-service and biometrics
The digitally optimised traveller experience makes use of facial recognition and touchless technologies, embedded in various self-service devices. Automation and biometrics will become the norm rather than the exception at leading airports globally in the next few years.
SITA has already implemented Smart Path self-service biometric and mobile technology and automated the outbound passenger journey at several airports, including Beijing and Miami. These deliver a ‘walk-through’ airport experience, where passengers can simply use their face as their boarding pass and walk from the taxi to the plane in a fluid and seamless fashion. Improved processing efficiency means less time in line and more social distancing for all passengers.
A key benefit during the Covid-19 era is that the process removes the need to touch any airport equipment, reducing the risk of infection significantly. Once airborne, passengers are increasingly being offered services via Wi-Fi or 4G networks to avoid any non-personal touchpoints (such as seat-back inflight entertainment screens) and respect social distancing – boosting confidence onboard as a result.
As well as biometrics and automation for improving passenger processing, there is a huge opportunity to increase efficiency and safety for airport and airline crew using technology like SITA Smart Path. In November 2020, SITA announced a trial with Etihad to use facial recognition technology to identify and authenticate crew members, allowing them to complete check-in procedures and mandatory pre-flight safety and security questions digitally via their own mobile devices. The new initiative has replaced a kiosk-based check-in process which required crew to use their staff identity cards as a form of authentication.
2. SDN innovation and evolving airport operations in response to Covid-19
Passenger flow management technologies such as SITA Airport Management provide real-time passenger monitoring and actionable insights, for airports to understand and manage passenger movement throughout the airport. It will become a necessity to pro-actively manage crowd density and social distancing during daily operations, as well as longer-term planning.
Utilising technology, like SITA’s Information Display System, airports can send passengers personalised mobile messages. This added level of communication places passengers at ease throughout their entire airport journey.
Innovation in software defined networks (SDN) is also enabling more resilient and agile airport operations that can respond to the changing demands of travel during and after the pandemic. For example, SITA’s SDN portfolio allows multiple airlines, ground handlers, and other tenants to access the same virtualised infrastructure in the cloud, delivering more scalable and agile connectivity. Leveraging Orange Business Services’ Flexible SD-WAN portfolio, this drives greater cost efficiencies and supports the airline industry’s drive to migrate applications to the cloud.
3. Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and machine learning
The Internet of Things (IoT) has held great promise for some time, but the convergence of 5G, maturing Artificial Intelligence (AI) programmes, and the ubiquity of sensors embedded into cheaper hardware is bringing this vision to life. The IoT creates a network of data-producing devices and assets that converse and increase efficiency across the airport. Examples of technologies that harness IoT and AI to solve business problems are robotics and autonomous vehicles, computer vision, language, virtual agents, and machine learning.
Machine learning algorithms detect patterns and learn how to make predictions and recommendations by processing data and experiences, rather than by receiving explicit programming instructions. Already, SITA is seeing an increased use of real-time data to intelligently handle turbulence and shifting weather patterns. The company recently announced a solution with eWAS Pilot that delivers both forecasts and satellite-based observation data, enabling crews to avoid the avoidable and create more economic, intelligent, and flexible flight plans.
While helping to address immediate needs like sanitisation, social distancing, and the automation of customer support processes, the combination of these technologies potentially signposts a Fourth Industrial Revolution, where, beyond airports, the physical world around us becomes connected and intelligent.
AI algorithms will be key to efficiency, with sophisticated AI becoming the secret sauce for airports. Airports will use visually-enabled analysis supported by AI-based recommendations to bring real-time 3D simulations of operations to life for all stakeholders, improving operational efficiency, and enhancing the passenger experience.
4. Development of a digital identity for air travel
In the coming years, we expect that the development of a digital identity will replace the traditional passport. One approach is a Digital Travel Credential (DTC), currently being explored and progressed by key industry bodies like ICAO.
Another potential solution is self-sovereign identity, a form of digital identity giving travellers control over how their personal data is shared and used. It adds a layer of security and flexibility, allowing the identity holder to reveal only the data required for any given transaction or interaction.
The benefits of using self-sovereign identity include lower financial transaction costs, protecting people’s personal information, limiting opportunity for cybercrime, and simplifying identity challenges in various fields, including travel, healthcare, banking, IoT, and voter fraud.
5. Vaccination visas, Health ETAs, and Advanced Passenger Processing
Health ETAs allow governments to receive the information they need to help reduce the risk of infection from travel and tourism. Travellers are required to provide information on their health status – potentially including PCR test results that indicate the presence of Covid-19 antigens – and are informed of that assessment’s outcome in advance of travel. This will give travellers the confidence before they start that they will be allowed to complete their journey.
Advance Passenger Processing (APP) brings the ability to assess the risk, including health risks, and allow or deny travel at check-in. When coupled with the implementation of a Health ETA service, it enables real-time checks to be performed to confirm that each traveller has completed the required health checks and is eligible to travel.
6. Blockchain for aviation industry-wide savings
It is almost as though the blockchain was invented for the air transport industry. Blockchain is about sharing information safely among different industry players. It is about providing one truth at a given point, that can be used to facilitate workflow and the exchange of data. This trusted network is tailor-made to address some key challenges of Covid-19 without compromising passenger experience or data privacy.
PwC estimates that the use of blockchain could increase aerospace industry revenue by as much as four per cent or US$40 billion, while cutting maintenance repair and overhaul (MRO) costs globally by around five per cent or US$3.5 billion. Savings will be derived from secure document storage, ensuring confidentiality and data privacy, improved insights on repair time and inventory, automated workflows, and more efficient record reconciliation.
In 2020, blockchain was successfully used in a SITA Blockchain Alliance MRO Proof of Concept to record and track two separate strands of information for each aircraft part: a digital thread and a digital passport. The digital thread provided the real-time status, chain of custody, and back-to-birth track and trace of the aircraft part over time. The digital passport – like a human passport – provided the indisputable identity of a part and contains other vital data such as certification of airworthiness to prove ownership.
From a passenger perspective, customs processes are another area where blockchain can solve challenges. Airports, airlines, and governments can share baggage content information to pre-clear bags at arrival, hence, avoiding the need to recheck bags in transit. Improving efficiency in this department, and further reducing the chances of baggage mishandling on arrival, is good news for passengers.
Covid-19 presents a minefield of data sharing challenges between the dozens of organisations required to collaborate during a single passenger journey. Being able to share critical information safely and instantly will result in easier, smarter, and safer air travel for all, encouraging a return to the skies and strengthening the resilience of the air transport industry for years to come.