Opinion

How coronavirus has made travel in China a whole lot harder for foreigners

Name: Chinese airlines offer unlimited flights to coax travellers back as Covid-19 crisis is under control
Uploaded: 2020-09-12T06:00:14.000Z
Duration: 1 min 57 s
Description: Chinese airlines offer unlimited flights to coax travellers back as Covid-19 crisis is under control

Travel restrictions in China have gradually eased as the country has brought the coronavirus pandemic under control

But that has not made finding a hotel any easier for foreign residents, one South China Morning Post reporter found

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Xiongan Station, which will connect Beijing with the Xiongan New Area in China’s Hebei province. Photo: Simon Song

Amanda Lee

Amanda Lee covers markets and the economy for the Post, with an interest in China's economic and social landscape.

Published: 2:00pm, 12 Sep 2020Updated: 2:43pm, 12 Sep 2020

As China gradually recovers from the coronavirus pandemic, travel restrictions have been relaxed; but this has not made getting around as a foreigner any easier.

During a reporting trip to Xiongan New Area in China’s northern Hebei province, I was rejected, for the first time, by a hotel I had already paid for because of my travel document. Even after explaining I had recently completed a 14-day mandatory quarantine at a designated facility in Beijing, they were unmoved.

“We are just not taking foreign guests right now because of the outbreak,” said a hotel staffer at the lobby. “I am sorry. We’ll give you a refund.”

I carry a Mainland Travel Permit for Hong Kong and Macau Residents, also known as a home return permit, issued by the Guangdong branch of the Public Security Bureau, the main civilian police force in China.

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Chinese airlines offer unlimited flights to coax travellers back as Covid-19 crisis is under control

China has never accepted Hong Kong passports as legitimate travel documents, no matter whether it was the British National (Overseas) passport issued by the colonial government before the 1997 handover, or the current passport issued by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. It always considered Hong Kong part of its territory.

Because I was travelling on a home return permit, I had never thought of myself as a foreigner until I was told by three hotels in Xiongan that I was a “foreign guest”.

Technically, Chinese hotels are supposed to have a special permit from local authorities before they can admit foreign guests, which typically means overseas passport holders.

As a result, it is not uncommon for small hotels and hostels in less developed parts of the country to reject foreigners. But it is clear that the global pandemic has made it even more difficult for overseas travellers to find somewhere to stay.