Space tourism took a giant leap in 2021: Here’s 10 milestones from the year

From suborbital space to high Earth orbit, space tourism is just getting started. This year saw more space tourists fly to space on a bunch of different systems, and the story has only just begun. Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, and SpaceX each flew their first tourist-focused missions this year, sending aloft several people each with minimal training in professional spaceflight. Meanwhile, Roscosmos (the Russian federal space agency) brought two sets of space tourists into space, including a mission with Space Adventures. With 2022 also set to be busy, between more tourist flights and the expected addition of company Axiom Space (using a SpaceX Crew Dragon), we rounded up some of the main milestones of 2021 below.

1) Axiom Space announces first crew for 2022

Axiom Space revealed its clients Jan. 26 for its first privately-funded and operated mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Called Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1), the flight is arranged under a commercial agreement with NASA.

Slated to launch on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft are Larry Connor, an American real estate and technology entrepreneur; Eytan Stibbe, a businessman and former Israeli fighter pilot; Mark Pathy, a Canadian investor and philanthropist; and Michael Lopez-Alegria, a retired NASA astronaut with nearly 260 days in space already across four missions.

In June, SpaceX and Axiom announced an agreement to fly three more missions to the orbiting complex after Ax-1. NASA officially cleared the Ax-1 crew for flight on Dec. 20.

2) Starship launches test flight and sticks the landing

After several attempts on previous test landing that didn’t make it safely to landing, SpaceX’s Starship SN-15 prototype launched its own test flight May 5 and made it all the way from takeoff to touchdown. 

The uncrewed test flight coincidentally fell on the 60th anniversary of the United States’ first-ever crewed spaceflight, which saw NASA astronaut Alan Shepard make it to suborbital space. SpaceX has said it hopes to use Starship to branch out in the solar system, especially for crewed Mars missions.

3) Virgin Galactic launches Richard Branson

On July 11, Virgin Galactic launched its first operational tourist flight, featuring founder Richard Branson. It was “the experience of a lifetime,” Branson said during a live broadcast of the flight. 

The four-person crew and two pilots of the Unity 22 test flight mission took off from the company’s Spaceport America facility in New Mexico and flew just above the boundary of space, where everyone experienced about four minutes of weightlessness. 

Future flights of Virgin Galactic, though, have been delayed due to a Federal Aviation Administration investigation into a reported incident that happened during the spaceflight. That said, Virgin has opened up tickets again to paying spaceflyers, now at $450,000 apiece.

4) Blue Origin launches Jeff Bezos to space

Days after the Virgin flight, Blue Origin launched its first crewed spaceflight on July 20, featuring founder Jeff Bezos and a set of other three space tourists, including Mercury 13 aviator Wally Funk. 

Since the system flies autonomously, no pilots were required to be on board (although Funk is highly qualified as an aviator) as the New Shepard system lifted off from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One near the West Texas town of Van Horn.

While Bezos and Branson denied their companies were in competition, the broadcast of Bezos’ flight made several cutting remarks about the company flying above the Kármán line, an internationally recognized boundary of spaceflight that Virgin Galactic flights don’t reach. 

Bezos also said in an interview in July that Blue Origin is not focused on competition, but building a “road to space.” The company has adopted that catchphrase as a tagline and repeats it frequently during live broadcasts.

5) SpaceX stacks tallest booster ever with Starship

SpaceX’s newest Starship prototype (SN-20) perched on its massive Super Heavy booster for the first time on Friday (Aug. 6), briefly setting a new record for the world’s tallest rocket during preparations for an orbital mission.

The hour-long fit check brought the stack to 395 feet tall (120 m), taller than NASA’s massive Saturn V moon rocket, which was 363 feet tall (110 m). Super Heavy alone stands 230 feet (70 meters) tall and Starship SN4 includes another 165 feet (50 m) of height. 

The next major milestone for Starship is the orbital launch that may take place in 2022, pending an environmental review by the Federal Aviation Administration and related government groups. SpaceX founder Elon Musk has pushed back launch estimates several times due to the review.

6) Inspiration4 launches 4 civilians on first orbital mission

Billionaire Jared Isaacman’s privately chartered spaceflight launched on Sept. 15, 2021 aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, flying high in Earth orbit on a nearly three-day mission. Inspiration4 was the first crewed orbital mission with no professional astronauts on board (as the Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin flights preceding it were all suborbital missions.)

Isaacman, a pilot, commanded the flight and was accompanied by physician assistant Hayley Arceneaux, data engineer Chris Sembroski, and geoscientist and science communication specialist Sian Proctor. Sembroski and Proctor won their seats in contests to support St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, while Arceneaux is employed at that hospital.

Resilience and its crew circled Earth for three days, splashing down off the Florida coast on Sept. 18. The mission exceeded its fundraising goal for St. Jude.

7) Blue Origin launches William Shatner

A “Star Trek” star boldly went into suborbital space Oct. 13 on Blue Origin’s second crewed space mission, called NS-18. William Shatner, 90, is best known for playing Captain James T. Kirk on “Star Trek: The Original Series.”

“That was unlike anything they described,” Shatner was heard saying via a radio link as the capsule parachuted back to Earth, after carrying him and three other crew members to suborbital space.

Shatner is now the oldest person to have ever flown to space, beating the record set by Wally Funk, 82, who flew on Blue Origin’s first crewed flight July 20. Crew member Glen de Vries died in a plane crash weeks after the flight and Blue Origin dedicated their next crewed mission in December to him.

8) Russian film crew shoots drama on ISS

Just days after Shatner’s ride to space, a Russian film crew including actress Yulia Peresild and producer Klim Shipenko landed with cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy of the Russian federal space corporation Roscosmos on Oct. 17.

“Вызов” (“Challenge” in English) is the movie in production. It follows the fictional story of a surgeon (Peresild) who is launched to the station to perform emergency surgery on a cosmonaut (Novitskiy, who would play the role well given he is a cosmonaut in real life.)

The effort is a joint production of Roscosmos, the Russian television station Channel One and the studio Yellow, Black and White. Given the small crew on hand in space, Shipenko took on several behind-the-scenes roles, including director, make-up artist, sound editor and cinematographer. 

9) Blue Origin launches ‘Good Morning America’ host to space

Blue Origin’s next (and likely last) crewed flight of 2021 filled out all six seats in the New Shepard spacecraft during a successful launch and landing Dec. 11. The starring guest was Michael Strahan, host of “Good Morning America”, who is a retired football player. (The crew threw mini-footballs in space to celebrate his past career.)

Strahan said the experience was amazing. “I want to go back,” he told Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos after returning to Earth. “Touchdown has a new meaning now!!!” he wrote on Twitter after the flight.

Also on the flight was Laura Shepard Churchley, 74, the daughter of NASA astronaut Shepard after whom the New Shepard system is named, and four other individuals who paid for their seats. Blue Origin has not yet released per-seat pricing for customers, and we are also awaiting details on their next planned crew launch.

10) Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa flies to ISS

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, video producer Yozo Hirano and cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin launched on Dec. 8 to the International Space Station for a 12-day mission to the orbiting lab.

Maezawa is also planning to fly around the moon on a SpaceX mission that he paid for, tentatively slotted for 2023, but chose to visit the space station as well on a mission brokered by the U.S. space tourism company Space Adventures with Russia’s Roscosmos space agency. It was not revealed how much Maezawa paid for the flight, but single seats in the past have cost up to $35 million. And Maezawa bought two seats, one for himself and for Hirano, who recorded videos of Maezawa in space.

Maezawa, the CEO of Start Today and the founder of online clothing retailer ZOZO, bought the seats for himself and Hirano. Hirano documented the mission and participate in some health and performance research. They also made the first Uber Eats delivery in space on the flight. The trio returned to Earth on Dec. 19.

And that’s a wrap at the biggest space tourism moments in 2021. The year 2022 is expected to bring more milestones as the company Axiom Space plans to launch its first fully private crew to the International Space Station early in the year, with SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic all expected to continue their private spaceflight pace. 

Source: https://www.space.com/space-tourism-giant-leap-2021-milestones

Digital tourism in the lockdown era

Tourism was one of the sectors that suffered the most from the COVID-19 pandemic. As early as April 2020, the International Air Transport Association has reported that over twenty million jobs were at risk.

You’ve been dreaming about traveling throughout your college years, but you never could afford it. You rarely had any free time. Half of your time was devoted to studies, and all the free time you could’ve had was spent on odd jobs to support your living and pay your tuition. 

Yes, you could’ve gone for a weekend to another town or another state, but never to a different country. Despite digitalization providing you with many possibilities, you simply didn’t have enough time or money to do that. 

And then, suddenly, the whole idea of traveling was stolen from you by the novel coronavirus. If you haven’t been working remotely, you lost your job. All your college life has gone online. And you are watching the news and finding out that yet another country goes on lockdown. 

Previously, you thought that you could’ve saved enough money and used one of 24/7 homework help services to spend a weekend, at least, in another country. And the only reason to get homework help from online services is that you are too depressed to do it on your own. 

Tourism was one of the sectors that suffered the most from the COVID-19 pandemic. As early as April 2020, the International Air Transport Association has reported that over twenty million jobs were at risk. Countries and regions that were dependent on tourism were hit the hardest. 

Fatalists were quick to claim that nothing was going to be the same and that the world would never go back to the norm. And it, indeed, seems like mass tourism is unlikely to bounce back to an insane number of over a billion international tourists. But that doesn’t mean that the sector is dead beyond resurrection. 

Rebuilding tourism: Key priorities
Since the novel coronavirus had enveloped the world, things were looking pretty grim for tourism. The predicted drop was 80%, and the actual drop wasn’t far from that number. And governments from around the world have made impressive steps, enabling tourism to survive in the short and medium-term:

• restoring traveler confidence;
• helping tourism businesses to adjust;
• supporting local tourism and facilitating international tourism recovery;
• providing exhaustive information to travelers and businesses;
• maintaining capacity in the sector and solving arising issues;
• improving cooperation locally and internationally;
• building more resilient, sustainable tourism.

But taking measures for short-term or medium-term survival wasn’t enough to help tourism continue. The pandemic is a lesson to learn from. And there’s a lot of work to be done and a lot of changes expected in the post-pandemic world. 

Main changes in traveling during the pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic changed the world of tourism. The question of whether those changes will persist in the future or not is still debatable. But there are several things that you should know if you are planning to travel within the next several years. Let’s check them out. 

The popularity of travel agents is on the rise again
Previously, all you had to do was find the proper flight and accommodation. But nowadays, almost every destination has its own rules and regulations in terms of vaccine and testing requirements. Somewhere, you are allowed to cross the border if you were vaccinated with Pfizer. Certain destinations require tests done as recently as 72 hours before the flight; others don’t.

This led to the rise in the popularity of travel agents. They will provide you with all the information about the vaccine rules and regulations in your tourist destination. But it’s not only their knowledge of health and safety guidelines that attracts the tourists but the ability to change tickets or cancel flights if needed. 

More money is spent on flexibility and insurance
The COVID-19 continues to mutate and change. The Delta variant arrived in late 2020, and Omicron was discovered in November 2021. And it affected tourists’ habits, especially in terms of flexibility and insurance. And people are willing to pay more to be safe. 

Previously, people opted for lower prices for airfare tickets and hotel rooms rent because they were sure that once they booked everything, they were going to make the trip. Nowadays, people are willing to pay more to have flexibility. You might want to go somewhere else or cancel your flight if the outbreak of the new variant of COVID-19 occurs in your destination point. 

The same goes for insurance. Previously, a lot of people opted against tourist insurance. Now, realizing that you may not get home if you catch COVID-19, tourists started getting insurance. Thus, you do need to cover your staying costs while recovering from the disease in another country. 

The rise of the workation popularity
Remember how you couldn’t travel because of your work? Remember hard decisions between working and traveling? Well, you don’t have to decide anymore. Remote employment opportunities allow you to work from any corner of the world. Even on the go, if you have a strong Internet connection. 

This led to a thing known as workcations. You can’t be present in the office because all of you are working remotely. So, why not log in your workday while on the beach? You can easily work from Lombok or wherever you want to go. Based on Booking.com research, the idea to combine work and leisure during the COVID-19 pandemic led to the rise of workcations. 

Final thoughts
No one can say for sure how long the pandemic will last. The chances that it will come to an end within several years increase with the advances of vaccines. At the same time, the pandemic’s impact on tourism will remain. And not all of the effects are negative. 

Surprisingly, the pandemic had quite a positive effect on ethical tourism. Nowadays, tourists feel the actual need to help the local communities of the destination point. And instead of staying at large multinational hotels and eating at the international restaurant chains, they stay at local hotels and dine out in local cafes. 

Source: https://www.traveldailynews.com/post/digital-tourism-in-the-lockdown-era

Bookings cancelled and plans changed as ‘chilling talk of Plan B’ hits hospitality sector

Restaurants and bars desperately need to have a good festive period after a “lost” Christmas last year – but now there are fears that mixed messaging and nervousness among customers could have a catastrophic impact.

Business owners across the hospitality industry say COVID rule changes are already having a “chilling” impact on bookings.

Many who have survived 20 months of lockdowns and restrictions as well as a “lost” Christmas last year, say a strong festive period this year is essential to their survival.

Data from reservations website OpenTable also suggests that diners became more cautious over the weekend after news of the Omicron variant came to light.

New restrictions came into place at 4am on Tuesday morning, including mandatory mask wearing on public transport, in shops, museums and other locations. Advertisement

While the hospitality sector is, thus far, exempt from these rules, many fear a nervousness setting in amongst customers.

Sacha Lord, the night-time economy adviser for Greater Manchester, is one voice already sounding the alarm.

“Every restaurant I’ve spoken to today, is now experiencing Xmas party cancellations.” he said on Twitter.

“Most of these businesses desperately needed a good December.

“The knock on effect will be catastrophic. Businesses, jobs, supply chain. A blow to a devastating year.”

OpenTable’s figures suggest that the level of people opting to eat out did fall in relative terms this weekend compared to the previous weekend.

On Saturday 20 November the number of seated diners was up 31% on the level seen two years ago – but by Saturday 27 November this had fallen to 20%.

There is concern that a lack of clarity from the government and those who advise it is not helping.

On Tuesday Dr Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UK’s Health Security Agency, said that “not socialising when we don’t particularly need to” would “help keep the virus at bay”.

The inference seemed to be that people should reduce contacts over the festive period and potentially cancel Christmas parties.

This was rejected by Prime Minister Boris Johnson who insisted he has implemented a package of “balanced and proportionate measures”.

The health secretary Sajid Javid reiterated that stance by suggesting people do not need to cancel parties but should consider taking a test before attending.

But many in hospitality fear the damage is already done.

“The chilling talk of Plan B is already being felt across hospitality as bookings are cancelled and plans changed,” said Kate Nicholls, chief executive of trade body UK Hospitality.

“There is no doubt that this will have a damaging effect on businesses, just as they head into their key trading period.

“This all comes at a critical time for the sector, as costs are rising across the board, supply chain issues continue, chronic labour shortages show no sign of easing and next year will see a return of 20% VAT rate.”

The importance of this period and customer confidence is being echoed by those in retail.

Many are very aware that real disposable income is falling due to the steep rises in petrol and energy costs as well as inflation more generally.

Footfall has also struggled to recover to pre-pandemic levels.

While it has improved in recent months, last week it was still 17% lower than during the same week in 2019.

Shop owners such as Sam Haq, who owns SWAG in Reading, say they need customers to remain confident.

“I believe the most important thing is not to lose customers now,” he said.

“This is where a lot of the shopkeepers and owners are going to have a problem.

“Do they worry about customers wearing masks or do they say nothing and welcome the trade? And I think 90% of them will just welcome the trade because they need the sales.

“To be honest if we have another lockdown it could put a lot of businesses down to the bottom and close.”

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/bookings-cancelled-and-plans-changed-as-chilling-talk-of-plan-b-hits-hospitality-sector-12483797

Six weeks after reopening, Bali wonders where the tourists are

Indonesian island’s unique culture and natural beauty not enough to overcome stress and worry of travel during COVID.

Pererenan, Bali – Before the pandemic, Dicky, who like many Indonesians goes by only one name, earned up to $20 a day hawking shell craft jewellery to tourists on the crowded beaches of Bali’s southwest coast.

But nearly two months after Indonesia reopened its doors to visitors from China and 18 other countries, the international tourists Dicky once relied upon for sales are still few and far between.

“I came here at eight in the morning and have been walking up and down the beach all day. I try, try and try but I have not sold a single piece all day,” he told Al Jazeera as a blindingly beautiful blood-red sun set over the Indian Ocean at Pererenan Beach last weekend. “I don’t understand why more tourists aren’t coming now that Bali is open again.”

Dicky is not the only person on the island perplexed about the fact that not a single international flight has landed in Bali since the international airport reopened on October 14. The island’s COVID-19 metrics – just about the lowest recorded since the start of the pandemic – only add to the conundrum.

According to Indonesia’s National Board for Disaster Management, the seven-day average for new positive cases in Bali now stands at 11, the seven-day average for deaths is just one while the seven-day positivity rate for individuals tested is 0.17 percent – well below WHO’s minimum threshold of 1 percent for territories it classifies as having the virus under control. Vaccine numbers are also well above the world average of 42.7 percent, with more than 77 percent of all adults fully vaccinated in Bali, according to Indonesia’s Ministry of Health.

But six weeks after the country reopened, only 153 people around the world had applied for tourist visas, according to Indonesia’s Directorate General of Immigration.

The low level of interest reflects a survey by the International Air Transport Association that showed 84 percent of people have no interest in holidaying at destinations that require quarantine, and Indonesia imposes a mandatory hotel quarantine that was recently extended in response to the Omicron variant.

“Even with a short quarantine, no one will come to Bali,” said Udayana University Professor I Gusti Ngurah Mahardika, the island’s most senior virologist.

Confusing, complex, constantly changing, and sometimes contradictory government messaging and immigration policy is also keeping international tourists away.

Thailand has reintroduced free visas-on-arrivals for tourists, but those who want to visit Indonesia must apply for visas at foreign embassies or consulates and need a travel agency to act as guarantor. And they must show proof of booked accommodation for the entire length of their stay in Indonesia – a surefire way to quench the wanderlust of any intrepid traveller.

“There is no clear statement from the government of what it is trying to achieve, a process for getting there, or simple guidelines for would-be tourists,” wrote Bali-based statistician Jackie Pomeroy on her popular ‘Bali Covid-19 Update’ Facebook page.

And in a blow to the domestic tourism sector that saw up to 20,000 Indonesians fly to the island daily in November, restrictions have been reintroduced for the period of December 24 to January 2.

Beach clubs, restaurants and nightclubs cannot host Christmas events or celebrate New Year’s Eve, while voices on social media fear all leisure travel in Indonesia will be banned during the peak holiday period.

Travel apartheid

A little less than a month ago, Professor Gusti advised Indonesia to drop quarantine altogether for fully vaccinated international travellers who test negative before departure and on arrival. But that was before the WHO identified Omicron as a variant of concern, tossing a radioactive wrench into the long-awaited reboot of the global travel industry.

On November 28, Indonesia, echoing measures by the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States, banned non-resident arrivals from South Africa or any of eight other African countries. It also banned travellers from Hong Kong, which has reported its fourth case of the Omicron variant. Yet it did not ban travellers from the UK, where 246 cases of the variant had been reported as of Sunday – the kind of knee-jerk policy UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has described as “travel apartheid”.

Indonesia also extended quarantine for arrivals from all other countries from three to seven days. Less than a week later, it was extended again, this time to 10, the longest quarantine period Indonesia has seen since the start of the pandemic. The strict new rule forced Garuda, the country’s national air carrier, to axe its first planned international flight to Bali in 20 months from Haneda Airport in Japan on December 5. Subsequent weekly flights have also been removed from the airline’s website.

The developments have put a dampener on Bali’s hopes of reviving tourism this year, which accounted for an estimated 60 percent of economic activity before the pandemic. The island’s gross domestic product (GDP) shrunk by just less than three percent in the third quarter, having contracted nearly 10 percent in 2020.

Indonesia’s national GDP increased 3.5 percent in the same period, making Bali the hardest-hit Indonesian province by the pandemic from an economic perspective for two years in a row.

The global tourism monster that once fed Bali will probably not rebound to 2019 levels until 2024, according to management consulting firm McKinsey & Company that made the prediction in June based on various scenarios that examined the effect of virus containment.

Observers in Bali feel the same way.

“History has shown that Bali is very resilient to disaster but the island will take another year or two to recover,” said Mark Ching, a director of the Tamora Group, a prominent property developer on the island. “It’s not just opening borders. People need to feel safe before they travel again.”

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/12/6/six-weeks-after-reopening-bali-wonders-where-the-tourists-are

When the Biggest Spenders Aren’t Coming Back Any Time Soon

Even before Omicron’s arrival, China was discouraging its citizens from traveling abroad. That has had a huge impact on global tourism.

On Jeju Island in South Korea, the markets have gone dark. In Bangkok, bored hawkers wait around for customers who never come. In Bali, tour guides have been laid off. In Paris and Rome, the long lines of people with selfie sticks and sun hats are a distant memory.

This was supposed to be the year travel came back. In Europe and Asia, many countries reopened their airports and welcomed tourists. But they are confronting a new reality: Variants such as Omicron are causing global panic, leading governments to shut borders again, and their biggest spenders — Chinese tourists — aren’t returning any time soon.

As part of its effort to maintain a zero-Covid approach, China has announced that international flights would be kept at 2.2 percent of pre-Covid levels during the winter. Since August, it has almost entirely stopped issuing new passports, and it has imposed a 14-day quarantine for all arrivals. Returning to China also requires mountains of paperwork and multiple Covid-19 tests.

No country has been more crucial to global travel in the past decade than China. Chinese tourists spent roughly $260 billion in 2019, exceeding all other nationalities. Their prolonged absence would mean travel revenues are unlikely to return to prepandemic levels soon. Analysts say it could take up to two years before China fully reopens.

Shopping malls have emptied out. Restaurants have shut down. Hotels are deserted.

The downturn is particularly affecting North and Southeast Asia. China is the No. 1 source of tourism in Asia for several large cities, according to Nihat Ercan, the head of investment sales for the Asia Pacific at JLL Hotels & Hospitality, an adviser to the hospitality industry.

The recent discovery of Omicron has prompted countries to reimpose travel restrictions or bar travelers altogether. It’s another blow to an industry that, though still reeling from the lack of Chinese tourists, was just starting to recover.

In Bangkok’s Or Tor Kor fruit market, where masses of Chinese tourists would once gather around tables eating durian, business has ground to a halt. Phakamon Thadawatthanachok, a durian seller, said she used to keep 300 to 400 kilograms of the spiky fruit in stock and had to resupply them three to four times a week to keep up with the demand. Now, she had to take a loan just to make ends meet.

“The loss of income is immeasurable,” she said. “At the moment, we are only holding onto the hope that it will get better someday.”

In Vietnam, the pandemic has caused over 95 percent of tourism businesses to close or suspend operations, according to the government.

Before the pandemic, Chinese visitors flocked to the beach towns of Da Nang and Nha Trang, accounting for around 32 percent of the foreign tourists into the country.

“The service industry in this city has died,” said Truong Thiet Vu, director of a travel company in Nha Trang that is now shut down.

On the Indonesian island of Bali, many tourist agencies have either sold their vehicles or have had them confiscated by their leasing companies, according to Franky Budidarman, the owner of one of two major travel agencies on the island that caters to Chinese tourists.

Mr. Budidarman said he had to cut the salaries of his office workers by half and pivoted to running a food delivery service and a cafe. “I’m grateful that I have survived for two years now,” he said. “I sometimes wonder how I could have done this.”

For the places that catered to Chinese tourists who traveled in group packages, the loss has been especially stark. On Jeju Island, popular among Chinese visitors because they could enter without visas, the number of tourists arriving from China dropped more than 90 percent to 103,000 in 2020 from more than 1 million in 2019. From January to September of this year, that number was only about 5,000.

As many as half of the duty-free shops catering to Chinese tourists in Jeju have closed, according to Hong Sukkyoun, a spokesman for the Jeju Tourism Association. At the Big Market Shopping Center, which used to sell island specialties like chocolate and crafts, all but three of 12 employees have been laid off, said An Younghoon, 33, who was among those who became jobless in July.

“When the virus began spreading, we all started counting our days down,” he said. “We knew there wasn’t going to be any business soon.”

Chinese visitors are less common in Europe, but they had emerged as an increasingly important market in recent years. At the Sherlock Holmes Museum in London, for example, about 1,000 people visited per day in its peak, and at least half of them were from China, said Paul Leharne, the museum’s supervisor.

Since its reopening on May 17, the museum has attracted only 10 percent of its usual numbers. This year, it opened an online store to sell merchandise and souvenirs, about a third of which is being shipped to China, he said.

“We really feel their absence,” said Alfonsina Russo, the director of the Colosseum in Rome, referring to Chinese tourists.

Asian tourists, “especially from China,” made up around 40 percent of international visitors to the Colosseum in 2019, according to Ms. Russo. That year, the site had adjusted its panels and guides to include the Chinese language, along with English and Italian.

The number of international tourists arriving in Italy remains down 55 percent, compared with a Europe-wide drop of 48 percent, according to statistics issued in June by ENIT, the national tourism agency. In 2019, two million Chinese tourists visited Italy.

Their disappearance has dealt “a devastating blow” to some businesses that had invested in this particular group, said Fausto Palombelli, head of the tourism section of Unindustria, a business association in the Lazio region, which includes Rome.

Like so many other places, Rome had taken steps to cater to visitors from China. It taught its taxi drivers to thank its Chinese customers with a “xie xie,” or thank you in Mandarin. Its main airport, Fiumicino, offered a personal shopping service with no value-added tax to attract Chinese travelers, according to Raffaele Pasquini, head of marketing and business development at Aeroporti di Roma, the company that manages Fiumicino.

In France, knowing that it may be months — possibly years — before Chinese tourists return, some are trying to keep a connection with potential customers.

Catherine Oden, who works for Atout France, the national institute in charge of promoting France as a tourist destination, said she had to familiarize herself with Chinese social media platforms such as Weibo and Douyin to live-stream virtual activities like French cooking lessons and tours of the Château de Chantilly.

“We want to be present in their minds,” she said. “So that once everything gets back to normal, they choose France as their first destination.”

In Paris, long lines of Chinese tourists snaking around the boutiques of the Champs-Élysées used to be a common sight. “Before the pandemic, we had four Chinese-speaking salespeople,” said Khaled Yesli, 28, the retail manager of a luxury boutique on the Champs-Élysées. “We only have one left, and no intention to recruit any more.”

Mr. Yesli said the store’s best-selling product was once a red and gold metal box containing macarons and hand creams that was designed purposely for Chinese tourists. But with sales lackluster in the pandemic, those boxes are now on the bottom shelf.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/05/world/asia/china-tourism-omicron-covid.html

China Outbound Tourism Set to Jump More Than 25% This Year – State Media

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese outbound tourism numbers are set to jump by more than 25% this year from 2020 but remain “basically at a standstill” compared to pre-pandemic levels, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Monday, citing official projections.

The dramatic drop in travellers from China, the world’s most populous nation, since the rapid spread of coronavirus early last year, has left a $255 billion annual spending hole in the global tourism market.

A total of 25.62 million Chinese tourist trips overseas are expected to be made in 2021, CCTV said, citing an annual report on outbound tourism from the China Tourism Academy, part of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

That is up from 20.334 million in 2020, which was itself an 86.9% plunge from a year earlier as the coronavirus outbreak led to severe restrictions on global travel.

This year’s projection, which includes trips to special administrative regions of China such as the gambling hub of Macau, will still be well below annual numbers of over 100 million before the pandemic hit, CCTV noted.

Macau, a former Portuguese colony, has become a “bright spot” for outbound tourism from mainland China due to effective virus prevention and control measures, CCTV said.

The pace of recovery in 2022 will depend on how other destinations handle tourism, it added.

China’s National Immigration Administration said this month it would continue to guide citizens not to go abroad for non-urgent and non-essential reasons.

Source: https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2021-11-22/china-outbound-tourism-set-to-jump-more-than-25-this-year-state-media

France’s Travel & Tourism Recovering Ahead of EU & Other World Countries

France’s travel and tourism sector has increased by 34.9 per cent this year, research from the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) reveals.

The news was shared during the Destination France Summit, where WTTC also added that the sector’s growth noted this year is ahead of other European countries by 23.9 per cent and 30.7 per cent compared to the international stage, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.

As WTTC shows, this recovery rate can bring France an additional €38 billion or a year-on-year growth of 35 per cent, which by 2022 is expected to stand at 21.8 per cent or about €38 billion.

According to Julia Simpson, WTTC’s CEO, France is recovering faster than other EU countries, but a long way ahead awaits the tourism and travel sector in the country.

“Last year the pandemic saw hundreds of thousands of jobs lost in France. This year employment remains flat, but we expect to see a big uptick in Travel and Tourism in France next year as long as the country remains open to vaccinated travellers,” Simpson noted.

As the Head of WTTC said, about 200,000 French residents lost their jobs last year, but employment is expected to remain on the same levels in 2021. Next year, the country expects a rise of 9.4 per cent, accounting for 236,000 job vacancies.

The same source shows that in 2020, the travel and tourism sector brought €108 billion to the country, accounting for 4.7 per cent of the national economy. This figure was 48.81 per cent less than 2019 when the sector brought €211 million (8.5 per cent) to the national economy.

In terms of the type of tourism, domestic travel has seen a surge in France during the last two years, but not enough to fully recover the economy and jobs lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The research also shows that domestic spending has increased by 56.6 per cent this year, but international spending is expected to mark a 1.9 per cent decrease by the end of the year.

In general, on a year-on-year basis, domestic spending is expected to increase by 9.9 per cent, whereas international spending can rebound by 67.8 per cent, as the vaccination campaigns have been implemented and employment rates have been restored to a point.

SchengenVisaInfo.com previously reported on the matter, revealing that a 35 per cent increase will be evident in France’s travel and tourism sector. The same source reported that the recovery would be evident sooner if the vaccination campaigns were fully implemented, a common digital solution to be standardised and for governments to recognise vaccine manufacturers.

Source: https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/news/frances-travel-tourism-recovering-ahead-of-eu-other-world-countries/

Big Data to measure the tourism sustainability of destinations

Mabrian expands its travel intelligence platform by adding a dashboard of sustainability indices for Smart Destinations. The new tourism sustainability dashboard uses big data analysis to measure a destination’s performance across multiple metrics. Index developed in collaboration with Mastercard and sus​tainability consultancy Ético.

SEVILLE, SPAIN –  Mabrian Technologies – a leading provider of travel intelligence – has launched the Global Sustainability Tourism Index at the Tourism Innovation Summit (TIS).

This new dashboard of indicators of tourism sustainability allows a destination to measure, compare and follow those factors that indicate sustainability for a destination.

In total the dashboard has six indices grouped together by concept, formed by more than 20 different indicators related to sustainability, that come together to make the Global Sustainability Tourism Index for destinations. 

Through these indices destinations can measure aspects such as the level of distribution of tourism income in the local economy, the concentration of the tourism offering in the locality, the dependence on long-haul source markets, any excessive seasonality or the perception that visitors have about the sustainability of the destination, amongst others. 

Additionally, destinations using this can add to those indicators in the dashboard their own data that they consider relevant to create a measurement even more complete that helps the development of sustainability. 

Carlos Cendra, Director of Sales & Marketing, comments: “Can tourism destinations really convert themselves into sustainable destinations without the tools necessary to measure their sustainability performance?   

“In this reinvention of the sector that we are seeing right now, sustainability is going to be the cornerstone of the reactivation of tourism under a model that is more aware of the issue.

“But there is a big gap when it comes to tools and indicators that allow the measurement and monitoring of the evolution of those concepts on the part of those managing destinations and tourism companies. With this index we hope to change that.”

Mabrian, in collaboration with its partner Mastercard, has developed a dashboard of indicators about tourism sustainability based on the observation of global data, that can be tracked and corroborated in stable manner over time. 

Mabrian has a wide range of experience in extracting indicators of tourism trends based on big data analysis of diverse sources. With this latest development it complements the wide range of tourism indices, including Tourist Product; Perceived Security; Perceived Climate; Hotel Satisfaction; and Global Tourist Perception.

For the definition of these indicators Mabrian has also counted on the advice and collaboration of the consultancy Ético, specialists in tourism sustainability, that has brought its experience in how to define a sustainable destination. 

Laura Garrido, founder of ético comments: “The challenge for tourism destinations is to understand and monitor the indicators that affect their sustainability. Only through data and their correct analysis can they plan adequate actions for the sustainable transformation of their destination. At ético we believe that this tool is key and necessary for taking decisions and the creation of sustainable tourism destinations.”

Mabrian has announced this news within the international summit dedicated to innovation in tourism that is taking place in Seville, Spain between the 10th and 12th of November, the Tourism Innovation Summit (TIS).

 Alex Villeyra, Operations Director at Mabrian, presented  the dashboard CET in the main auditorium of the Tourism Innovation Summit (TIS), with participants including Antonio Muñoz, responsible for urban habitat, culture and tourism at the Seville city council, a pioneering destination in the application of such indices; Caroline Leboucher, Director of ATOUT France; and Nicola Villa, Executive Vice President of Government Relations & Strategic Growth at Mastercard. 

Source: https://www.traveldailynews.com/post/big-data-to-measure-the-tourism-sustainability-of-destinations

Hoteliers doubt eased tourist rules will make a difference

Operators say new government plan to open borders to foreigners sets too-tight limits on vaccination requirements

A move by the government to open Israel’s borders to visitors has been met with skepticism by some in the tourism industry, who point out that the scheme’s COVID-19 vaccination requirements greatly limit the list of those who would be granted entry, Reuters reported Sunday.

The vast majority of tourists have effectively been banned from entering Israel since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in March of 2020. The reopening of borders has been delayed numerous times throughout the year, as COVID infections waxed and waned.

Last week the Prime Minister’s Office said ministers agreed to open Israel’s borders from November 1 to tourists who are vaccinated against COVID-19 or have recovered from the disease.

Guests at the reception desk in a Tel Aviv hotel, April 27, 2021. (Miriam Alster/ FLASH90)

A move by the government to open Israel’s borders to visitors has been met with skepticism by some in the tourism industry, who point out that the scheme’s COVID-19 vaccination requirements greatly limit the list of those who would be granted entry, Reuters reported Sunday.

The vast majority of tourists have effectively been banned from entering Israel since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in March of 2020. The reopening of borders has been delayed numerous times throughout the year, as COVID infections waxed and waned.

However, there were a number of conditions, such as having received at least one booster shot within the previous six months and that the tourists do not arrive from so-called “red countries,” those with high virus infection rates.

Hotel owners in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Nazareth, and Bethlehem in the West Bank have not seen a marked increase in bookings, according to the report.

Israel Hotel Association CEO Yael Danieli pointed out that many countries have yet to begin administering booster shots to their populations. Whereas Israel pioneered giving third shots to its population in a campaign that began in August, other countries only followed a two-dose vaccination regime.

“How many tourists out in the world have actually gotten boosters or are sitting in that six-month period following their second dose?” she said to Reuters.

Guests at the reception desk in a Tel Aviv hotel, April 27, 2021. (Miriam Alster/ FLASH90)

A move by the government to open Israel’s borders to visitors has been met with skepticism by some in the tourism industry, who point out that the scheme’s COVID-19 vaccination requirements greatly limit the list of those who would be granted entry, Reuters reported Sunday.

The vast majority of tourists have effectively been banned from entering Israel since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in March of 2020. The reopening of borders has been delayed numerous times throughout the year, as COVID infections waxed and waned.

Last week the Prime Minister’s Office said ministers agreed to open Israel’s borders from November 1 to tourists who are vaccinated against COVID-19 or have recovered from the disease.

However, there were a number of conditions, such as having received at least one booster shot within the previous six months and that the tourists do not arrive from so-called “red countries,” those with high virus infection rates.

The timeframe means that any would-be tourist whose most recent booster shot was before May 1 would not be able to travel to Israel. Get The Times of Israel’s Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Newsletter email address By signing up, you agree to the terms

Hotel owners in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Nazareth, and Bethlehem in the West Bank have not seen a marked increase in bookings, according to the report.

Israel Hotel Association CEO Yael Danieli pointed out that many countries have yet to begin administering booster shots to their populations. Whereas Israel pioneered giving third shots to its population in a campaign that began in August, other countries only followed a two-dose vaccination regime.

“How many tourists out in the world have actually gotten boosters or are sitting in that six-month period following their second dose?” she said to Reuters. Advertisement

A further constraint is that children under the age of 12 are not eligible for vaccination and therefore would not be permitted to enter Israel, even if their parents are, she noted.

Danieli said the government should allow individual tourists to enjoy the same rules that are already in place for small tour groups, which are exempt from the six-month rule, on condition that group members take virus tests every 72 hours during the first two weeks they are in the country.

“We just want to make it easier for tourists, so they come back,” she said. “We can’t say how many will be able to come with these rules.”

Israel’s entry rules also impact the West Bank, as visitors to the area must pass through Israeli border controls.

Joey Canavati, manager of Bethlehem’s Alexander Hotel, told Reuters that although the plans for November are a “great step,” he is not expecting any big change in tourist numbers until next year.

“At the moment, we just want to stop the bleeding, stop digging into our savings,” he said.

Guests at the reception desk in a Tel Aviv hotel, April 27, 2021. (Miriam Alster/ FLASH90)

A move by the government to open Israel’s borders to visitors has been met with skepticism by some in the tourism industry, who point out that the scheme’s COVID-19 vaccination requirements greatly limit the list of those who would be granted entry, Reuters reported Sunday.

The vast majority of tourists have effectively been banned from entering Israel since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in March of 2020. The reopening of borders has been delayed numerous times throughout the year, as COVID infections waxed and waned.

Last week the Prime Minister’s Office said ministers agreed to open Israel’s borders from November 1 to tourists who are vaccinated against COVID-19 or have recovered from the disease.

However, there were a number of conditions, such as having received at least one booster shot within the previous six months and that the tourists do not arrive from so-called “red countries,” those with high virus infection rates.

The timeframe means that any would-be tourist whose most recent booster shot was before May 1 would not be able to travel to Israel. Get The Times of Israel’s Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Newsletter email address By signing up, you agree to the terms

Hotel owners in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Nazareth, and Bethlehem in the West Bank have not seen a marked increase in bookings, according to the report.

Israel Hotel Association CEO Yael Danieli pointed out that many countries have yet to begin administering booster shots to their populations. Whereas Israel pioneered giving third shots to its population in a campaign that began in August, other countries only followed a two-dose vaccination regime.

“How many tourists out in the world have actually gotten boosters or are sitting in that six-month period following their second dose?” she said to Reuters. Advertisement

A further constraint is that children under the age of 12 are not eligible for vaccination and therefore would not be permitted to enter Israel, even if their parents are, she noted.

Danieli said the government should allow individual tourists to enjoy the same rules that are already in place for small tour groups, which are exempt from the six-month rule, on condition that group members take virus tests every 72 hours during the first two weeks they are in the country.

“We just want to make it easier for tourists, so they come back,” she said. “We can’t say how many will be able to come with these rules.”

Israel’s entry rules also impact the West Bank, as visitors to the area must pass through Israeli border controls.

Joey Canavati, manager of Bethlehem’s Alexander Hotel, told Reuters that although the plans for November are a “great step,” he is not expecting any big change in tourist numbers until next year.

“At the moment, we just want to stop the bleeding, stop digging into our savings,” he said. Advertisement

Under the new regulations, only tourists who have been vaccinated during the 180 days before they boarded the plane will be allowed to enter Israel. In the case of the Pfizer vaccine, seven days must elapse between the traveler’s second or third shot and entry to Israel. In the case of Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson (one dose, not two), Sinovac, and Sinopharm, 14 days must elapse.

After announcing the plan last week, the Prime Minister’s Office said the scheme, which must still be approved by the high-level coronavirus cabinet, may be updated to take into consideration any threat posed by fresh variants of the coronavirus. Several cases of the new AY4.2 variant have already been diagnosed in Israel.

Current regulations allowed tourists to begin arriving in organized groups in May, though in a very limited capacity. Additionally, first-degree relatives of Israeli citizens or residents were able to apply for permits to travel to the country.

Under both the current and the new regulations, all travelers to Israel must take a PCR test within 72 hours of their departure and must take a second test when they land at Ben Gurion Airport. Vaccinated travelers must remain in quarantine either for 24 hours or until they receive a negative test result. Those who are not vaccinated must remain in quarantine for 14 days, which can be shortened to seven days with two negative tests, on days 1 and 7.

Israel appears to be at the tail end of its fourth coronavirus wave, as new infections and serious cases have ticked down over the past few weeks.

Tourism numbers dropped 80 percent in 2020, a plunge from record numbers in 2019 that were worth $7.2 billion to the economy.

Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/hoteliers-doubt-eased-tourist-rules-will-make-a-difference/

Sabah set to revive tourism industry by helping tour operators

Sabah is set to revive its tourism industry that went “dormant” over the last 18 months since the country was under various movement control orders.

With the lifting of the inter-district travel ban across the state, the Sabah Tourism, Culture and Environment Ministry is now focusing on reviving the state’s tourism industry especially by helping operators restart their businesses.

“We are also working towards restoring tourists’ confidence in our tourism sector to generate income for the state,” its Minister Jafry Ariffin said.

Contrary to the perception that most tourism players might have shuttered down their businesses, Jafry said that only 1% of tourism operators had shut down completely after the Covid-19 lockdowns.

Based on a survey done by the Sabah Tourism Board, he said only 48% temporarily closed operations due to movement control orders.

The number of tour operators who are still fully operational to date is 45.5%, he added.

The ministry is now actively implementing various new approaches including more aggressive and strategic promotional campaigns to revive the tourism industry.

Among them are virtual engagement sessions for Sabah tourism fairs which also involved the Malaysian Association of Travel and Tourism Agents (MATTA), Sabah Association of Travel and Tourism Agencies (SATTA), Asia Pacific Tourism Association (PATA) and cooperation with foreign trade in social media campaigns.

He said the state had assisted tourism workers through special assistance during the lockdowns.

Among them, was a one-off assistance of RM2,000 to tour operators and RM300 to tour guides, art activists, dive-masters, mountain guides and porters.

For hotel and accommodation operators, five and four star hotels received RM5,000 while three, two, and one star hotels received RM2,000.

Also receiving the same benefits were hotels that have not been recognised, homestay associations and also the Rural Tourism Association who each received RM1,000 payment.

In addition, he said his ministry offered incentives to encourage domestic tourism activities as well as the organisation of business activities including meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE).

“All parties need to be aware that bringing this sector back to the state before the Covid-19 outbreak will not be an easy task,” he added.

However, tour operators were now able to breathe a sigh of relief following the flexibility granted by the government, which allowed them to resume operations.

“We will always listen to the grievances and challenges faced by industry players at all subsequent levels together to address them comprehensively,” he said, adding that tourism was one of Sabah’s largest economic and employment contributors.

Source: https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2021/10/15/sabah-set-to-revive-tourism-industry-by-helping-tour-operators