Singapore opens to more countries, eases test rules for visitors

Singapore will ease Covid travel testing rules and launch new vaccinated travel lanes with the Philippines and Israel as it woos more tourists and seeks to reclaim its status of one of Asia’s major travel hubs. Shares of the city-state’s aviation-related stocks rose. The city-state also will start previously announced VTLs from Feb. 25 with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates -- major transit hubs in their own right -- and Saudi Arabia, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore said in a statement Wednesday. The lanes with the Philippines and Israel will start March 4. At the same time, rules for travelers from Hong Kong were tightened slightly: Singapore downgraded the financial hub’s status because of its own outbreak, but will open a travel lane so vaccinated travelers from Hong Kong can still enter without quarantining. Singapore has been seeking to revive its status as an aviation hub after starting travel lanes with more than 20 countries including the US, UK and France last year, and refrained from closing them completely even when the omicron variant sent case numbers soaring. Regional rivals including Tokyo, Hong Kong and Shanghai remain largely closed to international visitors as those places seek to keep imported infections low.<br/>