SINGAPORE – Travel agents are gearing up for a strong finish to 2021 after Singapore announced quarantine-free leisure travel arrangements with nine new countries over the past two days, its biggest move to reopen borders so far.
Fully vaccinated travellers can travel to the United States, Britain, Denmark, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Canada from Oct 19, and to South Korea from Nov 15. This comes on top of existing Vaccinated Travel Lanes (VTLs) with Germany and Brunei. However, the latter has not yet opened its borders to leisure travellers from Singapore.
Those in the travel industry are optimistic about the new destinations, with figures from the Singapore Tourism Board showing that the US, South Korea and Britain were Singapore’s eighth, ninth, and 10th largest markets in terms of international visitor arrivals in 2019, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. The top three markets were China, Indonesia and India.
“This is hands down the best news since the pandemic…