[But as coronavirus has spread from China to tourism hot spots across Asia — aided by the mass movement of people during the Lunar New Year holiday — many people are looking for ways to protect themselves against the pneumonia-like respiratory ailment that has claimed more than 200 lives.]
By Anna
Fifield
 |
|
Tourists
at Angkor Wat, the ancient temple complex that is Cambodia’s biggest tourist
attraction,
have
been wearing masks this week to guard against coronavirus.
(Anna
Fifield/The Washington Post)
|
SIEM
REAP, Cambodia — Tourists
roaming around the ancient Cambodian temples at Angkor Wat are used to having
to protect themselves. Usually, it's against the sun and the indefatigable
hawkers.
But as coronavirus has spread from China to
tourism hot spots across Asia — aided by the mass movement of people during the
Lunar New Year holiday — many people are looking for ways to protect themselves
against the pneumonia-like respiratory ailment that has claimed more than 200
lives.
“We had hand sanitizer from China and our
hotel gave us masks,” said Roberto Rubio, an American living in the Chinese
coastal city of Qingdao. He and his wife, Jenessa, left China on Jan. 19,
before the severity of the outbreak was clear.
They were wearing light blue surgical masks
as they toured the ruins at Angkor Wat, which is usually packed with Chinese
tourists during the Lunar New Year holiday but was notably quiet this past
week.
Now, their return flight has been canceled
and their workplaces are offering to extend their breaks. “We haven’t decided
what to do,” Jenessa Rubio said, with a shrug.
The outbreak of the coronavirus — which has
been detected in all of China’s neighbors, including Japan, South Korea, the
Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia — has cast a pall over a regional
tourism industry that has become increasingly reliant on China’s burgeoning
middle class.
The Chinese government has canceled all
outbound group tours, while a sizable number of those traveling independently
have canceled their plans.
It’s an outcome that is complicated for
China’s neighbors, and its impact is only just beginning to be felt.
Avoiding
Chinese tourists
It’s not unusual to see Asian tourists
wearing the kinds of masks more frequently associated with dental hygienists.
But this week, everyone from New Zealanders to Russians, Chileans to Sri Lankans
has been donning masks as they travel around places that are popular with
Chinese tourists.
This concern about health is looking a lot
like profiling.
Some even say they are going out of their way
to avoid Chinese tourists, and Mandarin-speaking travelers like Taiwanese and
Singaporeans have noticed people putting on masks when they approach.
Many tour guides at Angkor Wat are wearing
masks given out by their agencies.
“The government has told us to wear masks,
but I don’t think they can really protect us, and I can’t wear a mask up here
every day,” said Bing, a security guard who gave only his first name as he was
sitting at the top of three very steep flights of stone steps at the Ta Keo
temple, which has been renovated with Chinese aid money.
“The Chinese tourists still come. We just
hope it gets better soon,” he said.
One traveler from Shanghai who had scaled Ta
Keo said all Chinese tourists at his hotel were having their temperatures
checked every day and had been asked where they were from.
“You’d better not say you’re from Wuhan,”
said the man, declining to give his name.
Traditional Chinese spots in Siem Reap, like
the hot pot restaurants and the huge duty-free store with its happy year of the
rat signs, are almost empty.
For many, Chinese comprise the largest
portion of their foreign tourists, and they arrive with more money to burn.
From the hotels of Siem Reap to the cosmetic stores of Seoul, Chinese-speaking
staff are in hot demand, and Chinese payment apps are welcome.
But there’s now a flip side.
Calls
for 'blockade'
In South Korea, the detection of six cases of
coronavirus brought some calls for an entry ban on Chinese visitors.
Shim Jae-chul, the floor leader of the main
opposition Liberty Korea Party, called for a “fundamental blockade by such
means as an entry ban on Chinese tourists,” while an online petition asking
President Moon Jae-in to ban Chinese nationals from entering South Korea drew
more than 590,000 signatures in a week.
Some 130,000 Chinese tourists were expected
in South Korea during the week-long Lunar New Year holiday, part of a rebound
since a politically motivated nadir in 2017. Chinese tourist numbers had grown
by 44 percent since then.
In Japan, businesses around the country are
reporting a slump from last year, when more than 720,000 Chinese tourists
visited during the month around Lunar New Year. One travel agency that prepares
group tours for Chinese tourists told the Yomiuri newspaper that bookings for
some 20,000 visitors had been canceled this week.
“The biggest foreseeable risk is that demand
from inbound tourists will fall excessively,” said Hideo Kumano, executive
chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute in Tokyo. Chinese tourists
have been a “lifeline” after a sharp fall in the number of South Korean
visitors, he said.
Kimono rental shops, where Chinese women go
to get done up in traditional Japanese dress and hairstyles before they wander
the streets, have seen a spate of cancellations.
“We’ve seen the number of reservations by
Chinese customers fall to just one-tenth in recent days,” said Takayuki
Watanabe, the president of a kimono rental shop in the Tokyo tourist spot of
Asakusa. Worse still, Japanese customers, aware that many Chinese go to the
kimono stores, have started canceling too, afraid of coming into contact with
Chinese travelers.
Business owners in the southwestern hot
spring city of Beppu, meanwhile, are disappointed that a cruise ship, scheduled
to bring nearly 2,000 Chinese tourists next week on its maiden trip there, had
been canceled.
“Because Chinese tourists are known as big
shoppers, I think [business owners] are disappointed at the news,” said Shota
Kato, a Beppu tourism official. The city had even been preparing for the
welcoming ceremony for the ship.
Malaysia has tightened visa requirements for
Chinese, while the Chinese territory of Hong Kong has drastically curtailed
transport links with the mainland. Countries including Vietnam and Thailand
have increased screening measures for arrivals into the country.
Thailand’s Tourism Authority says it expects
the number of Chinese tourists to fall from 9 million to 7 million this year
because of the virus.
'You
can't take away the fear'
The spread of the coronavirus has caused even
countries that are politically amenable to China to impose restrictions.
The Philippines, which welcomed almost 1.4
million Chinese tourists in the first nine months of last year alone and has
set itself a target of 4 million Chinese tourists by 2022, has stopped granting
visas upon arrival for Chinese nationals and refused entry to visitors from the
city of Wuhan, where the virus began.
But the Philippines president, Rodrigo
Duterte, said there was no need to ban travelers from mainland China or to
completely suspend flights between the two countries.
Some hotel operators have, however, started
taking matters into their own hands by turning away Chinese nationals.
Lisa Almerida, a tour operator on the
Philippines island of Coron, known for its beaches and diving, said she
encountered a Chinese family with three children who were searching desperately
for somewhere to stay after being turned away at several hotels.
“We’re safe, but you can’t take away the
fear,” Almerida said. “I had four Chinese tourists. I felt an impulse to wear a
mask, but I was too embarrassed.”
It’s a similar situation in Vietnam, where
authorities have blocked travelers from the part of China where the virus
began, while the government has said workers returning from China after the new
year holiday must be quarantined for 14 days under the supervision of local
health officials.
A hotel on the island of Phu Quoc and a
restaurant in the beach resort of Danang have put up signs saying: “At this time
we are not receiving guests from China.”
In Cambodia, an impoverished country that has
benefited enormously from both Chinese tourism and investment in recent years,
Prime Minister Hun Sen has said there was no need to take drastic action like
blocking all air traffic from China. The six weekly flights from Wuhan have
been suspended, but others continue.
“Stopping flights from China would mean
killing Cambodia’s economy,” he told reporters at a news conference called to
address the concerns over the virus. “In good times, we stay together. But in
difficult times, we run away [from China]?”
An exodus in Chinese tourists would inflict
new pain on Cambodia’s economy at a time when it is already reeling from the
departure of almost half a million Chinese who left when Hun Sen banned online
gambling.
Chinese tourists accounted for more than
one-third of travelers to Cambodia last year, with 2.18 million arriving in the
first 11 months of 2019, according to Cambodia’s Ministry of Tourism.
“Please don’t frighten Chinese people,” Hun
Sen continued, according to local reports. “We are working to help them. We
help treat Chinese citizens who are staying in Cambodia.”
For citizens of other countries traveling in
Cambodia, however, the virus has caused some unanticipated shopping trips.
Holly Quinonez of Operation Pop Smoke, which
takes veterans on trips designed to alleviate post-traumatic stress disorder,
also left Washington state before the severity of the outbreak was known.
“We cased Phnom Penh but we couldn’t find any
masks,” she said at the entrance to Ta Keo. “In the end, we had to buy some
from a person on the street.”
Min Joo Kim in Seoul, Akiko Kashiwagi in
Tokyo, Regine Cabato in Manila and Shibani Mahtani in Hong Kong contributed to
this report.
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