[CathayLoyalist2]

[postquote quote=1228563]

I am in the same boat. By comparison in October BA to SIN return in CW is GBP 9600

Are people really paying those prices in business given 3+4 days quarantin?e

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Polly

[CathayLoyalist2]

[postquote quote=1228609]

…and any connection time cannot exceed 24 hours

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Polly

[Polly]

CL2,

No wonder BA don’t want to re route us, with those cash prices around… and planes full too wish folks leaving for the U.K. permanently, again sad for HKG in general.

[FormerBA]

Its not enough.

Just back from Bali and tourism is hurting as China and Japan are still closed.

Its also driving up airfares as the loss of all that capacity is significant.

Many more Europeans in the resort than previously though many were like us returning guests though we were much earlier than previous visits.

There are a great many flights from OZ but nothing compared to what it was before. Aircraft are noticeably smaller than previously too

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Jacob, cwoodward, Polly, DerekVH

[stevescoots]

[postquote quote=1228677]

I think the issue is more the flight to london, availability on those is almost non existant. HK’rs have been locked up 2.5 years and desperate to travel so are paying the prices.

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Polly

[IanFromHKG]

[postquote quote=1228415]

McDonald’s wouldn’t be a problem if you are doing take-out as no vaccine pass is required for that so there would be no breach of the rules. And many Ubers nowadays are licensed taxis (I would be surprised if you haven’t already seen – even without registering it – a taxi with the Uber logo plastered down the side.

Leaving that aside, the real issue as I see it is that this continues to act as a deterrent to foreign visitors. Ok, only three days’ isolation rather than seven, but an inability then to have “social” meetings in restaurants or bars makes for a pretty lonely life on the road for a business traveller. The rest of the world – well, ok, not China, North Korea and a few other places – has largely opened up and accepted that Covid is here to stay.

Months ago I posited on this forum that the best thing for HK would be to have Omicron come in and let rip. And while I feel slightly ashamed of that inasmuch as there were so many deaths, I still think history proves that I was right. Vaccination rates shot up, herd immunity is building, the government finally acknowledged that they were never going to stop it, and rules have started becoming *slightly* more sensible. There is still a long way to go in that regard. I can’t wait (literally – that’s just one of the reasons why I am leaving my adopted home of thirty years).

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Polly, cwoodward

[cwoodward]

I had difficulty believing the above cost from LHR to HK and then on to Vietnam and so I made a dummy booking via the Cathay website this morning over breakfast.

LHR HKG return business CX 252 4th October return 14th October. The quoted cost was GBP 5,765.76 if onward to Vietnam GBP 6.202.29 return. Their was availability on most days
This using only CX metal. Certainly not inexpensive but a long way from 8000.

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Polly

[cwoodward]

Ian,
I honestly believe that it won’t be long.
There is a new air of confidence about and I see that Swire yesterday spent 4 Billion on a share buyback.
The new CE I don’t know personally but my very good friend of many years(a retired British assistant commissioner) spent 5 years working closely with him and his opinion is that no one better could have been chosen. Understands the big picture, good knowledge of UK and expats and importantly sees the value of an open Hong Kong.
All, in my opinion is far from lost and just this week friends advised that after 3 years away they are moving back with kids and dogs and looking to buy plus a friend from UK a lawyer told us yesterday that he and the family will be back from Decembar after 4 years away.
One swallow and all that but I honestly believe that HK is on the move and again and will be the place to be within a couple of years.
V sorry that you are leaving.

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Polly, IanFromHKG

[cwoodward]

It is perhaps of interest that Cathay it seems is bringing back the Lifetime MP club level membership. They advised in a note just now it is not of much importance to me as I already have something similar but it is perhaps good news to some.

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IanFromHKG, Polly

[IanFromHKG]

Interesting, cwoodward (and kind of you to make your closing comment). You clearly have better local contacts than I do but one of my colleagues who is politically very well connected on the Mainland regards our new CE as – well, I won’t use the word he used, but a polite synonym would be “awful”. However if, as you say “no-one better could have been chosen”, that in itself is a pretty damning condemnation of our political system. And let’s face it, although people seem to be pleased with what he has done so far, I suspect the overwhelming basis for that is by virtue of comparison with his appalling predecessor, who would make an incompetent, ignorant, disinterested halfwit look good. Nobody I have spoken to trusts the government to do the right thing, and I honestly think most Hong Kong people don’t trust the government *at all*.

HK is littered at the moment, as you know, with banners and flags bearing the slogan “Stability. Prosperity. Opportunity.”. Ha! ”Stupidity. Punishment. Oppression.” would be nearer the mark.

There was a time when I would happily have retired in HK, but the events, and changes in attitudes, of the last five or six years – not to mention the difficulties around travel (legal, practical and financial) – have made me change my mind and even to accelerate my retirement. We couldn’t see our beloved Offspring (now based in the UK) for Christmas last year and we’re just not prepared to let that happen again.

I shall leave with mixed feelings. I genuinely love Hong Kong, and I don’t for one moment regret moving here. It’s an amazing place to live, and by and large it has been good to us. I have not ended up wealthy, but we have enough to have a very comfortable retirement doing the things we love. I will definitely miss being here and the extraordinary lifestyle differences we have been able to enjoy here compared with what we would have experienced had we remained in the UK. We’ve also had tremendous fun along the way, and have made some incredible friends – but so many of them have left already, more are planning to do so in the near future, and yet more are desperate to leave but just hanging in there until they can afford to move. Only one of our friends has returned to HK, and that is only because he spent the last couple of years in the UK caring for his wonderful wife as, with the help of the NHS, she battled cancer (a battle she sadly lost). My own trust in the government is non-existent. But we also have an exciting chapter to look forward to, and the chance to make many new friends. The move is – and the transition to semi-retirement (I am hoping to retain some consultancy work) – will be stressful, but I’m looking forward to it!

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K1ngston, Jacob, MartynSinclair, Polly, cwoodward

[cwoodward]

Ian,
Mine (if it ever happens) is too a little island that I purchased couple of years ago off the Philippines. Sounds perhaps grand but as you are probably aware not very costly.
Bonne Vitesse

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Polly, IanFromHKG

[stevescoots]

[postquote quote=1228804]

i was looking in Sept and out october usually a stay of 3-4 weeks. only pricing i was seeing near that involved a 36 hour journey and via FRA

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Polly

[stevescoots]

Ian,

those slogans and banners “Stability. Prosperity. Opportunity” started to appear in DongGuan 9 years ago, soon followed by suggestions they appear in companies, then pictures of aircraft carriers and so on at the gates of apartment complexes. not going to get political but its a trend that is not going away and to think it wont or will stay as, is wishfull thinking. I met with a potential US customer in Vietnam this morning who is pulling everything out of China over the next 18 months and its not low end items, its high tech.

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Polly

[IanFromHKG]

As a lawyer, I must confess that on my regular visits to the Hong Kong Club I draw as much consolation as I can from the fact that the so-called Court of Final Appeal (more realistically the court of semi-final appeal until the government decides it doesn’t like the answer and appeals to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of the PRC to overrule it, notwithstanding Article 82 of the Basic Law) now sits in the former Legislative Council building in Central, and by a wonderful ironic quirk the executive arm of the government were refused permission (by another arm of government) to alter it. So, in our highest local court, justice – which at the judiciary level is one of the few areas where the government still works properly, I am glad to say – is still administered quite literally under the crown.

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Polly, cwoodward

[cwoodward]

The above is purely political statement that has no relevance to business travel and in my view has no place on this forum but I do feel the need to put the record straight as regards the points raised.

The banners in Hong Kong have been organised by an individual and are transient. I have factories in Zhongshan and Shunde in China and I have never seen any quantity of these banners described above. Never have we been pushed by the local government in the way stevscoots mentions ether. Possibly in more remote unexposed parts of the country this sort of thing happens but I travel to those also and have never seen what is described above.
Customers come and go from China or any country for a variety of reasons and always have but I am pleased to say that the scenario mentioned is totally foreign to me.

It is to misunderstand Hong Kong and its people to believe that there will be any significant change here in the way alluded to above.
The vast majority of the population are ambivalent re China. Many are descended from refugees from China, most seek to live here because they prefer Hong Kong to China and the local local population are deeply uninterestedly in politics as long as they continue have a decent life and freedoms. It would be fair to say that many locals actively dislike the mainland and its people and it would not be wrong ether to suggested that many are actively racist as far as mainland Chinese are concerned.

This, as I comment above is not in my opinion a subject for this forum and I will not be posting re the politics of China or Hong Kong further.

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IanFromHKG, Polly

[Author]

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