(CNN) — Market vendor Mr. Chan gestures round what was once one in every of Hong Kong’s busiest streets.

“There aren’t any vacationers now, in any way,” he says. Mr. Chan sells silver earrings, necklaces and scarves on Tung Choi Avenue in Kowloon, which is known for its strong evening market.

The previous three years have been harsh on him. He saved his stall open till 10 p.m. earlier than the pandemic, however lately he closes at 7 p.m.

He hopes for swift change with the top of quarantine, which had a devastating impact on companies that relied on tourism.

Hong Kong has taken steps in latest days to reopen itself to the world, by first lifting its necessary three-day lodge quarantine, then asserting a worldwide banking summit in November.

Officers hope these strikes will revive Hong Kong’s standing as a world enterprise and journey hub, however some locals really feel the modifications could also be too late.

Mr. Chan at his stall within the Hong Kong Girls’ Maket.

Jan Camenzind-Broomsby/CNN

An extended winter

At its most strict, Hong Kong’s quarantine guidelines required incoming vacationers to spend 21 days in a lodge room paid at their very own expense. Solely Hong Kong residents have been permitted entry.

Because of this, journey out and in of the monetary hub was at report lows.

As soon as information of the top of quarantine was introduced on Friday, September 30, travel-starved Hong Kongers flocked to e-book flights on-line. Town’s flag provider Cathay Pacific arrange a digital “ready room” to get onto its web site, the place maintain instances may simply stretch to half-hour.

The web journey reserving service Expedia stated its web site additionally noticed a 9-fold surge in seek for flights from Hong Kong to Tokyo and 11-fold for flights from Hong Kong to Osaka.

Nonetheless, the curiosity in flights to Hong Kong remained unchanged, Lavinia Rajaram, Expedia’s Asia head of public relations, stated.

As soon as-thriving Mido Cafe closed in 2022 after foot site visitors got here to a standstill.

Jan Camenzind-Broomsby/CNN

An uneven success

Although lodge quarantine could also be gone, town nonetheless imposes a 3-day interval throughout which guests are barred from eating in eating places or going to bars. That and the sophisticated visiting necessities, which embrace a pre-flight vaccination certificates and detrimental assessments, might deter potential guests.

In November, Hong Kong plans to host the Worldwide Rugby Sevens match, which has been held yearly since 1976 aside from the previous two years. A preferred spectacle that drew followers from overseas earlier than the pandemic, it’s uncertain what number of will courageous the border restrictions.

Whereas consuming is allowed, meals might be banned on the occasion. Followers may even be required to put on their masks always besides when consuming, in accordance with town’s authorities.

Hong Kong’s Asian neighbors together with Japan, Taiwan and South Korea took steps in previous weeks to take away the final remaining obstacles on journey, making them extra engaging locations for worldwide vacationers.

Too late for some

The federal government’s effort to reopen and promote town got here too late for Maxence Traverse, a restaurant proprietor who needed to shut his enterprise, Honi Honi Tiki Bar, final 12 months.

He says the nine-year-old bar couldn’t survive the 2019 protests and the pandemic. After a six-month hiatus, he opened a restaurant within the metropolis’s Tai Cling neighborhood however he’s preventing to maintain it going, he stated.

Traverse’s enterprise is one in every of many within the meals and beverage business that shut down completely through the pandemic. A few of the metropolis’s iconic Cantonese eating places — together with Mido Cafe, Jimmy’s Kitchen and Lin Heung Tea Home — have additionally closed their doorways.

Traverse was enormously upset when he noticed an interview with Hong Kong Well being Secretary Lo Chung-mau, through which Lo stated Hong Kong will proceed to open up until a brand new Covid variant emerges.

“I cried. Despair. Actually exhausting, that arduous feeling. I stated, ‘Not once more.’ Almost third 12 months in a row. , it has been powerful,” Traverse stated.

He believes merely reopening town is not going to be sufficient to revive what drew him there 12 years in the past.

“We have to be offering pleasure for Hong Kong, as a result of proper now we misplaced so many issues,” he stated.

CNN’s Jan Camenzind Broomby and Jadyn Sham contributed reporting.