Business 'bubble' travellers to arrive in Singapore from March, after month's delay

THE first facility under Singapore's "business travel bubble" will welcome its first guests from early March, more than a month after the scheme was meant to go live.

Connect@Changi at the Singapore Expo, which was developed by state-owned Temasek Holdings and consortium partners, opened for bookings on Thursday.

Alan Thompson, joint head of strategic development at Temasek, dangled potential "big demand" for short-term, quarantine-free stays from regions such as the United States and parts of Europe and Asia, where no reciprocal travel arrangements are yet in place.

He added: "We are comfortable, based on the inbound enquiries that we've had, as well as our analysis of pre-Covid traffic, that there will be demand for this facility."

Indeed, the move comes as Singapore explores how to safely hold conferences and meetings in person amid the Covid-19 pandemic, as Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat noted at the launch.

"The resumption of business travel and international meetings is important for catalysing economic recovery, in Singapore and the region," he said.

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"Doing so will also help to speed up the recovery of our MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) and hospitality sectors, which have been hard-hit, and preserve our role as a global business hub."

Connect@Changi is part of the Connect@Singapore pilot for "business, official and high economic value travellers" to fly into Singapore for up to 14 days. They are tested on arrival and at regular intervals throughout their stay, and are confined to dedicated facilities such as Temasek's.

Their activities "will help us to catalyse economic recovery", said Mr Heng, naming business negotiations, legal consultations and private banking as some examples.

The scheme was unveiled in mid-December last year, and the first group of such travellers were to have hit Singapore's shores by end-January.

But The Business Times reported this month that the launch was delayed, as the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) had not yet picked facility operators. Besides Connect@Changi, no other approved operators have been named.

Still, Mr Heng, who is also Finance Minister, urged Connect@Changi to be a "living lab", so that "we can scale successful innovations, and accelerate our economic recovery".

The elephant in the room is the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting, which is slated to be held in Singapore in August - rather than the usual Davos - after two delays.

"That will be a decision that the government and the WEF organisers make, but this will certainly be one of the options that they have on the table," said Mr Thompson.

This was even as he billed Connect@Changi as a "national resilience project", when asked about the investment footprint for the development.

"The economy was hurting, the aviation industry was hurting, the F&B and hospitality industry was hurting. We needed to find a way to kickstart the economy," he said of the decision to convert four Expo halls into a dedicated space for international meetings.

"That would then enable travel to happen, and gradually we would be able to get business as close to a new normal as we could under this kind of circumstances. So that was the driving imperative behind that."

But, while bookings are already open, travellers can arrive only from March, since short-term business travellers using the quarantine-free Connect@Singapore pilot can enter the country only two to five weeks after submitting their applications.

One company has already publicly signed on with Connect@Changi: Temasek subsidiary Advanced MedTech Holdings, a urology devices firm that plans to hold a senior leadership meeting of up to 30 global executives at the facility. Temasek did not say where these executives will be arriving from.

Connect@Changi is backed by Temasek; subsidiaries Sheares Healthcare Group and Surbana Jurong; SingEx-Sphere Holdings, a joint venture between Temasek and BT publisher Singapore Press Holdings; CapitaLand's The Ascott; and Changi Airport Group, controlled by the Minister for Finance.

The facility will open with an initial capacity of 150 guest rooms and 40 meeting rooms, ramping up to 660 guest rooms and 170 meeting rooms in May. The target is for a full capacity of 1,300 guests later this year, although no date was given.

The design of the rest of the facility, as well as the pace of construction, will depend on "evolving needs in the pandemic", said Mr Thompson.

Connect@Changi room rates, which begin at S$384, include airport transfers and mandatory Covid-19 tests. Meals will be dropped off outside guest rooms, while meeting rooms are self-service, to reduce virus risks.

Robin Hu, head of international policy and governance at Temasek and chairman of SingEx-Sphere Holdings, said in a statement: "After close to four months of intense, round-the-clock construction and collaboration with our partners, various government agencies, vendors and subcontractors, we are now ready to offer business travellers the option of resuming in-person meetings in a safe and contained manner, and do our part to catalyse economic recovery for Singapore and across the region."