Recovery of Singapore’s hotel industry will be faster than Hong Kong’s because they are less dependent on Chinese tourists: Magnificent Hotel

Singapore’s hotel sector is expected to take a significant hit from the Covid-19 outbreak in the short-term and recover just as quickly as after Sars in 2003. Operators in Hong Kong, however, may not be that lucky and will have to wait until the social unrest is resolved, according to analysts.
Christine Li, head of research for Singapore and Southeast Asia at Cushman & Wakefield, said the disruption from the outbreak on Singapore’s hospitality industry is expected to be short-lived even though the impact might be deeper in the near term.
William Cheng Shun-ho, chairman and CEO of Magnificent Hotel Investments, felt the time taken for the hotel sector to get back to normal in Singapore and Hong Kong would vary.
“The recovery of Singapore’s [hotel industry] will be faster than Hong Kong’s because they are less dependent on China,” said Cheng, whose company owns nine hotels, including Best Western in Hong Kong.
Chinese tourists accounted for 78.3 per cent of the 55.9 million total visitors to Hong Kong in 2019. In comparison, they made up about 20 per cent of the 19.2 million visitors to Singapore last year.
Both cities will see reduced visitor flows from China at least in the first half, as measures including a travel ban on people from the mainland have been put in place, to contain the spread of the coronavirus that has so far claimed 2,010 lives and infected some 75,000 people.