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Taiwanese Travelers Allowed to Enter Singapore Starting December 18

Article by : Helen Dec 30, 2020

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Singapore is finally ready to welcome travelers from Taiwan. As announced by the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore, Taiwan made the cut and joined Australia, Brunei Darussalam, New Zealand, mainland China, and New Zealand on the list of the countries from which visitors can travel to Singapore. The decision will enter into force on December 18.

Taiwan was lucky enough to get the green light from Singapore because it reported no new coronavirus infections over the past 28 days. Hong Kong, on the other hand, wasn’t as lucky – the COVID-19 situation there caused Singapore to defer the plans for a travel bubble between the two areas twice so far.

In order to go to Singapore from Taiwan, travelers will need to apply for an Air Travel Pass free of charge, install a contact tracing app (TraceTogether) beforehand, and get tested upon arrival for COVID-19. Transiting from Taiwan to Singapore may be possible, but visitors who wish to do so will need to stay in Taiwan for at least 14 days first.

Should the PCR test return a positive result, the visitors will have to stay in self-isolation for 7 days. Until the results are known (which is typically between 12 and 48 hours), the visitors can take only private transport only and have to remain in self-isolation. Travelers should keep in mind that the ban lift is unilateral: the CAAS recommends checking “the entry requirements imposed by Taiwan and take the necessary precautionary measures”. According to CAAS, Singapore welcomed just 4,050 travelers after the travel restrictions were relaxed as of December 10. One may argue it’s still better than zero, though.

We don’t unilaterally open to every place, every country that has very low infections, even though we trust their system. But let’s open bit by bit. So far, it has proceeded smoothly. That’s not affected our infection rate in Singapore. So I think that was the right approach. But I think I am running out of places. I hope to have more places as vaccines come.

Singapore’s two casinos, Marina Bay Sands (owned by Las Vegas Sands) and Resorts World Sentosa (owned by Genting Singapore), have tried – and somewhat succeeded – to soften the blow from the lack of tourists coming to the venues. They retargeted their operations at locals, and it did have a positive effect on their bottom lines in 3Q2020, although the year-on-year drop in profits is still painful to look at.

In fact, Marina Bay Sands was the only Las Vegas Sands’ property to turn a profit in the third quarter of this year ($70 million), while Resorts World was also in the black – Genting Singapore managed to bring in $54.45 million in net profit after taxation. Both venues were allowed to reopen only starting from July this year, and in the same month, Resorts World had to lay off 2,000 of its employees.

The good news is, Singapore seems to be doing quite well when it comes to mitigating the coronavirus spread, in part because the city’s authorities prefer to take it slow and remain cautious. The second phase of the so-called “post-circuit breaker” measures (circuit breaker is the COVID-19 mitigation strategy of Singapore) was implemented in July, and it seems Singapore is ready to take it down a notch again.

According to the Ministry of Health of Singapore, phase three of the post-circuit breaker reopening will start on December 28 this year. Albeit there are no foreseen changes to how casinos are allowed to operate at the moment, it is still a silver lining that may also mean more guests venturing into casino venues – both locals and foreigners.

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