Travel News
Cuba, Israel and Phu Quoc announce reopening plans
Fall is almost here, we’re approaching our seventh season of living with a pandemic, and yes, it still sucks. Never mind, though, as CNN Travel is here as always to sharpen your pencils, straighten your rucksack and get you schooled in our weekly roundup of the latest developments in pandemic travel news.
1. France has banned unvaccinated American travelers
France has become the latest European country — and the most significant tourism destination — to remove the United States from its safe travel list, following EU recommendations in the wake of a US Covid spike.
A French government decree issued on Thursday bumped the United States and Israel from the country’s “green” list, down to “orange,” effectively prohibiting nonessential travel to France for unvaccinated visitors.However, the caution is reciprocated. France was added to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s highest-category risk list — “Level 4: Covid-19 very high” — back on August 9, meaning US citizens are already advised to avoid nonessential travel there.
2. And Spain has done the same
In a change from policy earlier this summer, Spain is allowing tourists from the United States only if they are fully vaccinated, the health ministry told CNN on Tuesday.The new rule, which took effect this week, states that visitors from the United States on “nonessential travel,” such as tourism, must show “a vaccination certificate that the (Spanish) Ministry of Health recognizes as valid.”Like France, Spain is on CDC’s highest-risk Level 4.
3. Cuba will start to reopen its borders in November
Cuba’s state-run media has announced that the island will begin to reopen borders in November, despite a recent surge in Covid cases. Cuba has been closed for much of the pandemic, which has hit the local tourism industry hard. According to Cuba’s Ministry of Health, more than four million people on the island have been fully vaccinated with the island’s home-grown vaccines.A statement from the Ministry of Tourism that was published on Monday in the Communist-party newspaper Granma said that Cuba will gradually reopen borders starting November 15 and will no longer require travelers to take a PCR test upon arrival.
4. Israel will reopen to small groups of tourists this month
An Israeli pilot program to kick-start tourism will allow small foreign tour groups from selected countries, reports Reuters. Fully vaccinated tour groups of between 5 and 30 people from countries on Israel’s green, yellow and orange lists will be allowed to enter the country, the tourism ministry said on September 5. Individual tourists will still not be allowed to enter outside of a tour group, with exceptions being made for people visiting family members.
5. The Vietnamese island of Phu Quoc will reopen next month
Vietnam has taken a tough line with its Covid restrictions — this week a man was jailed for five years for spreading the virus — but there are still plans to revive its tourism industry. Authorities hope to reopen the island getaway of Phu Quoc to foreign tourists from next month, for a trial period of six months. The 222-square-mile island is known for its stunning beaches, including Sao Beach, Long Beach and Ong Lang Beach.
6. Jamaica and Sri Lanka have been added to the US ‘do not travel’ list
Two tropical islands half a world apart and popular with tourists — Jamaica in the Caribbean and Sri Lanka in South Asia — are the latest additions to the CDC’s ever-expanding list of the highest-risk destinations for Covid-19.They join the likes of Greece, Portugal, the UK, Ireland, South Africa, Thailand, the Bahamas and many other much-loved vacation spots.
7. The UK government was blasted for long lines at London Heathrow
Last weekend saw huge lines at London’s Heathrow Airport as families returned from trips abroad in time for the new school term. Social media erupted, with some claiming to have been kept waiting for hours.The airport press office criticized British Border Force on September 4 saying, “We are very sorry that passengers faced unacceptable queuing times in immigration last night (September 3) due to too few Border Force officers on duty.” The UK government might scrap its travel traffic light system within weeks, the BBC reports, and could be replaced with a new strategy that would allow vaccinated travelers to go quarantine-free to countries with similarly high levels of vaccination as the UK.
8. Time Out has named its ‘best cities in the world’
San Francisco — renowned for its booming tech industry, sumptuous restaurant scene and THAT bridge — has been crowned the “world’s best” city, according to Time Out.Time Out says San Francisco’s “unbeatable combination of progressiveness, acceptance and sustainability” clinched it the top spot. It was also applauded by Time Out for its response to the pandemic, and for boasting one of the highest vaccination rates in the US.
9. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will be a bit more like normal this year
The world-famous Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will return to a more traditional route in 2021 and the public will once again be able to line the streets of Manhattan to watch.However, masks will be required for volunteer participants and staff and a vaccine mandate will apply, with few exceptions. Public viewing locations, entry guidelines and restrictions will be announced in November.
10. Delta Air Lines says the stick part of its ‘carrot and stick’ strategy is working
US airline Delta announced in late August that, while it wasn’t mandating vaccinations for employees, after November 1 those who weren’t jabbed would face a company health insurance increase of up to $200 a month. The company reported Friday that since the announcement, its employee vaccination rate has already shot up from 74% to 79% — a big leap in around two weeks. There remain around 20,000 unvaccinated Delta employees.
Source: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/pandemic-travel-news-france-spain-cuba-israel/index.html
MP’s Ladhpura Khas nominated as ‘Best Tourism Village’ for UNWTO award
The ‘Rural Tourism Project’ has been started in villages across the state, including in Ladhpura Khas, with an objective of giving shape to the concept of village tourism by adding new dimensions, Madhya Pradesh Tourism and Culture Department’s Principal Secretary, Sheo Shekhar Shukla, said.
Ladhpura Khas, a village in Madhya Pradesh’s Niwari district, has been nominated in the ‘Best Tourism Village’ category for the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Award, a senior state government official said.
“The Union Ministry of Tourism has nominated Ladhpura Khas village near tourist town Orchha under the Best Tourism Village category for the United Nations World Tourism Organization Award. Along with this, two other villages have been nominated – (one each) from Meghalaya and Telangana,” Madhya Pradesh Tourism and Culture Department’s Principal Secretary, Sheo Shekhar Shukla, said in a statement.
The ‘Rural Tourism Project’ has been started in villages across the state, including in Ladhpura Khas, with an objective of giving shape to the concept of village tourism by adding new dimensions, he said. “In the next five years, 100 villages will be developed from the point of view of rural tourism. Among these, suitable sites will be selected and developed around tourist places, including Orchha, Khajuraho, Mandu, Sanchi, Pachmarhi, Tamia, Panna National Park, Bandhavgarh National Park, Sanjay Dubri National Park, Pench and Kanha National Park, etc,” he said.
Shukla said that rural tourism provides an opportunity to local people to learn about the interests and needs of tourists while maintaining the importance of local culture and tradition. “The local community will directly benefit from the development of tourism in their area. MP Tourism Board is also providing training to develop tourism-related products with community participation,” he said.
Meanwhile, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has congratulated all the officers and employees of the tourism department for nominating Ladhpura Khas village as the ‘best tourist village’ and said that it was a matter of pride for the state.
Source: https://www.hindustantimes.com/lifestyle/travel/mps-ladhpura-khas-nominated-as-best-tourism-village-for-unwto-award-101631339575855.html
Venice to demand tourists pre-book city visit on app to tackle tourist overcrowding
Authorities in the Italian city are testing airport-like turnstiles to control the flow of people. Should the number of visitors become too high, further tourists will be prohibited from entering.
Authorities in Venice are preparing to demand tourists pre-book their visit to the city on an app in a bid to tackle tourist overcrowding.
Officials in the Italian city are also looking at charging day-trippers between €3 (£2.58) and €10 (£8.59) to enter, depending on the time of year.
Airport-like turnstiles are being tested to control the flow of people and, should the number become too high, stop new visitors from entering.
Venice mayor Luigi Brugnaro said his aim was to make tourism sustainable in the lagoon city, which is visited by about 25 million people a year.
“I expect protests, lawsuits, everything… but I have a duty to make this city liveable for those who inhabit it and also those who want to visit,” he told reporters.
City officials have already started tracking every person who sets foot in the city in a bid to tackle the issue.
With a CCTV network of 468 cameras, optical sensors and a mobile phone-tracing system, officials are able to tell residents from visitors and where they are travelling from.
They can also find out where people are heading and how fast they are moving, with authorities updated every 15 minutes on how crowded the Italian city is.
Information on how many gondolas are on the Canal Grande, whether boats are speeding and if the waters rise to dangerous levels are also passed on.
Residents, students and commuters will be exempt from the tourist tax, as will those spending at least one night in a Venice hotel, given they will have already paid the overnight tariff of up to €5 (£4.29) a day.
Mr Brugnaro added that authorities had yet to decide what the maximum number of people in the city should be and when the new rules will be enforced.
They were due to be implemented between next summer and 2023.
The scheme was first mooted in 2019 and then it was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The mayor’s plan is the subject of debate, with some worrying it will deter tourists from visiting.
Others, such as 50-year-old Stefano Verratti who sells Murano glass near the train station, backed the idea.
“I have been here for 30 years, and it used to be very different. Before Venice was really romantic,” he told Reuters.
“Now it’s just people rushing to buy a kebab, take a quick selfie on the Rialto bridge, and then rushing to take a train. I don’t know if they really enjoy it.”
A month ago, Italy banned cruise ships from Venice lagoon to defend its ecosystem and heritage, after the United Nations culture organisation UNESCO threatened to put the country on a blacklist for not banning liners from the World Heritage site.
Source: https://news.sky.com/story/venice-to-demand-tourists-pre-book-city-visit-on-app-to-tackle-tourist-overcrowding-12400694
European countries reimpose bans on US tourists
The prospect of European travel for Americans has begun to diminish once more as countries adopt new measures in response to a recent surge in US Covid cases. Earlier this week, the European Union announced it was dropping the United States from its safe list, advising its 27 member states to reconsider allowing entry to nonessential US travelers.
Many prime tourist destinations that welcomed back much-needed visitors from the United States earlier this year, have so far chosen to ignore the non-binding EU advice. Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden have become the first to impose new rules.
Beginning on September 4, the Netherlands says the United States will be designated a “high risk area,” joining Israel, Kosovo, Lebanon, Montenegro and North Macedonia as fresh additions to this list, according to a government website. While travelers from these and other high-risk countries will be allowed entry if fully vaccinated, they must still quarantine for 10 days. And as of September 6, they must also produce a negative Covid test. Sweden, which had previously exempted US travelers from a ban on almost all non-EU arrivals, has also removed the country from its approved list, alongside Israel, Kosovo, Lebanon, Montenegro and North Macedonia.
Pandemic-battered tourism industry
The country said in a press release the measure would apply to all nonessential arrivals, whether vaccinated or unvaccinated, although those with Swedish resident permits who can produce recent negative tests could be exempted.It added Swedish authorities were considering whether to allow fully-vaccinated arrivals from certain counties and would “return to this issue at a later date.”
Italy, which was one of the first European countries to open its borders earlier this year, has also introduced new measures affecting arrivals from all destinations, including the US.On August 31, it began requiring all visitors to show proof of a PCR or antigen Covid test taken within 72 hours of travel, regardless of whether they are vaccinated.
Those travelers who are not vaccinated or have proof of recovering from Covid must quarantine for five days on arrival and take a swab test, according to Italy’s Ministry of Health. It’s unclear yet whether other European countries, many of whom have been banking on an influx of US visitor dollars to help revive their pandemic-battered tourist economies, will also revise rules. Covid cases have been rising sharply in the United States throughout July and September, with the disease’s Delta variant blamed for many new cases.
Source: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/eu-bans-on-us-tourists-sweden-netherlands-italy/index.html
Dark tourism can lead to dark places
A James Cook University researcher has been studying ‘dark tourism’ – the phenomenon in which tourists visit sites of death and disaster – and is warning of its psychological dangers.
Travel medicine specialist Dr Irmgard Bauer is from JCU’s College of Healthcare Sciences. She said the term dark tourism covered a range of destinations of varying danger and horror, from historic dungeons and prisons to old and current battlegrounds, to sites of the Inquisition, Holocaust or Rwandan genocide.
“Memorial sites for the 1994 Rwandan genocide, for instance, attract visitors who are presented with displays of bloodstained clothes, the actual remains of victims and also the opportunity to meet some of the perpetrators in person,” said Dr Bauer.
She said such tours may inflict psychological scars in an unpredictable way, including descent into full-blown psychosis, with the reaction subjective, highly individual and unpredictable.
“Torture instruments in a mock dungeon may shock one traveller whereas another remains detached when visiting a former concentration camp. So, it is important travel medicine practitioners investigate travellers’ motivations for and emotional responses to visits of ‘dark’ sites,” said Dr Bauer.
She said one of the reasons for dark tourism’s attraction may be a natural curiosity and hunger for more insight into death.
“People have become more distant from death. It’s been medicalised, so dying now happens away from public view, it’s become a private affair, so there are usually no public outpourings of grief, and the de-ritualisation of death and mourning makes sure that life goes on without major interruption,” said Dr Bauer.
She said regardless of which philosophical angle, category, classification or label is used, it is the appreciation of the effect on the traveller that should concern travel health practitioners.
“It is a practically unexplored part of travel medicine. Travellers may come home with a fever, which will be attended to; but their potential psychological scars remain invisible,” said Dr Bauer.
Source: https://www.miragenews.com/dark-tourism-can-lead-to-dark-places-620908/
Asian tourism sees ups, downs in 2nd year of pandemic
From the Great Wall of China to the picturesque Himalayan mountains of India, Asia’s tourist destinations are looking to domestic visitors to get them through the COVID-19 pandemic.
From the Great Wall to the picturesque Kashmir valley, Asia’s tourist destinations are looking to domestic visitors to get them through the COVID-19 pandemic’s second year.
With international travel heavily restricted, foreign tourists can’t enter many countries and locals can’t get out. In the metropolis of Hong Kong, glamping and staycations have replaced trips abroad for at least some of its 7.4 million residents.
Across the Asia-Pacific region, international tourist arrivals were down 95% in the first five months of the year, compared to the same period before the pandemic in 2019, according to the U.N. World Tourism Organization.
New variants of the virus loom — a constant threat to any recovery in even domestic tourism. Warnings of a possible third wave in India worry Imraan Ali, whose houseboat on Kashmir’s Dal Lake is his only source of income.
“Since we are expecting a good influx of tourists, we don’t want that to be affected,” he said.
INDIA CAUTIOUS AS OUTBREAK RECEDES
Tourists are returning to the valleys and mountains in Indian-controlled Kashmir, as infections in the Himalayan region and nationwide come down after a deadly second wave earlier this year.
Nihaarika Rishabh said she and her husband were relieved to finally get away from their home in the city of Agra for their honeymoon, after their wedding was postponed during the second wave. The vacation in Kashmir has helped calm their nerves after months of the pandemic, she said.
Ali, the houseboat owner, is happy that the number of visitors has gone up. “We have been suffering from past two years,” he said. “Our livelihood depends on tourism.”
But mountainous areas like Kashmir have seen an uptick in infections as the number of visitors rises, fueling worries about a third wave.
BANGKOK’S BUSTLE GOES QUIET
Erawan Shrine in the center of Bangkok once bustled with foreign tourists and locals making offerings day and night. Today, it is eerily quiet. Only a handful of people buy incense or flowers from the vendors who set up stalls outside.
“We are still here because we don’t know what else to do,” said one, Ruedewan Thapjul.
As Thailand battles a punishing COVID-19 surge with nearly 20,000 new cases every day, people who depend on tourism struggle in what was one of the most-visited cities in the world, with 20 million visitors in the year before the pandemic.
Suthipong Pheunphiphop, the president of the Thai Travel Agents Association, urged the government to commit to its plan to reopen the country to foreign tourists in October.
Currently, the streets are all but empty in Bangkok’s Siam Square shopping district.
Passavee Kraidejudompaisarn, the third-generation owner of a popular noodle shop, wiped away tears as she talked about her fears of losing the family business.
Previously, the 60-year-old restaurant would be filled with locals and foreign tourists, bringing in about $2,000 a day. Now, she said, she earns a little more than $2 on some days.
CHINESE STAY IN CHINA
Strict virus control measures have allowed China to return to relatively normal life. The number of tourists visiting Beijing in June and July tripled compared to the same period last year, while revenue quadrupled, according to Trip.com, China’s largest online travel booking platform.
“I personally feel very safe,” Olaya Ezuidazu, a Spanish national living in Beijing, said on a recent visit to the Great Wall.
But even China is not immune to the delta variant. Outbreaks in July and August prompted authorities to suspended flights and trains to affected cities. Parks and museums reduced the number of visitors to 60% of capacity, down from 75% previously.
Phil Ma felt the resulting dent on tourism at his café in a traditional “hutong” neighborhood, steps away from Tiananmen Square in central Beijing. “It is obvious during the three or four days from the weekend to today that the number of guests has decreased a lot,” he said.
The alley outside his café was quiet, in contrast to the line that formed for a cup of coffee during a major holiday in May.
GLAMPING IN HONG KONG
The difficulty of traveling abroad has made glamping — or glamourous camping — popular in Hong Kong.
Berina Tam and Vincy Lee went with We Camp, a campsite located in Yuen Long, a rural area in the north of Hong Kong.
“It’s actually a good opportunity for us to really, to try to explore Hong Kong a bit more,” Tam said.
Many glamping sites provide clean beds, showering facilities and barbeque sites for campers to grill kebabs and chicken wings. The typical charge is $65 per person a night.
Bill Lau, the founder of Hong Kong travel platform Holimood, said that glamping offers an alternative for those who find camping too primitive.
“Families and couples need to find somewhere to go during weekends,” he said. “If we are trying to recreate the experience of traveling, it must be an overnight experience.”
Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/asian-tourism-sees-ups-downs-2nd-year-pandemic-79692304
Tourists, industry in limbo after EU drops US from safe travel list
It is up to individual countries to decide whether to follow the EU’s recommendation.
The EU’s decision to take the United States off its approved travel list, just months after it was included, has upset the travel industry — but it doesn’t bring transatlantic travel to a crashing halt.
EU countries agreed to take the U.S. off the list Monday, in a decision that also saw Israel, Kosovo, Lebanon, Montenegro and North Macedonia dropped.
The move means U.S. travelers could once again face restrictions on nonessential trips to Europe, although countries can lift that ban for fully vaccinated tourists.
The “decisive” factor was a surge in coronavirus cases in the U.S., an EU diplomat said. The country, which is dealing with a daily average of 155,000 newly reported infections, had previously been placed on a “watch list” as a result of climbing case numbers, according to two diplomats.
The EU last year recommended that countries put a temporary stop on nonessential trips from outside the EU, arguing that a coordinated approach was crucial in convincing governments to lift travel restrictions within the bloc.
Its list of non-EU countries from which travel is nonetheless considered safe is updated every two weeks, based on an assessment of criteria such as the countries’ health status, their approach to the pandemic, the trustworthiness of their data and their willingness to reciprocate.
Because the EU’s recommendation is nonbinding, the impact of the decision to remove the U.S. from the list will depend on whether individual countries choose to follow it — something that is not yet clear.
It’s in countries’ interest — and that of the EU’s free-travel zone — that they follow EU travel measures, for the sake of coherence, but “it is, and remains, a recommendation,” one EU diplomat said.
Croatia, for instance, has taken a more liberal approach to travel from outside the EU, allowing third-country nationals traveling for tourist reasons to enter with a negative test or proof of vaccination or recovery. SPONSORED BY CECIMOabout:blankSCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
Mato Franković, the mayor of Dubrovnik, said in an interview earlier this month: “You see that things are pretty much under control … even if we have really a lot of people now in all destinations throughout Croatia.”
For the travel industry, the decision spells trouble.
The decision “is extremely disappointing for Europe’s airlines and our ailing tourism sector,” Jennifer Janzen, of airline lobby group A4E, said Monday, arguing that “with the spread of the Delta variant in communities on both sides of the Atlantic, it’s clear that air travel is not the source.”
The recommendation is “bad news” for travel agents, too, Eric Drésin, secretary-general of industry group ECTAA, said. Besides expected business losses, which risk “further fragilizing the companies,” the decision “shows that we are still in the midst of the pandemic,” he said, warning that it would be a blow to people’s confidence that they can travel safely.
Both called on U.S. and EU decision-makers to lift restrictions for travelers who got vaccinated, tested, or who have recovered from the virus.
Source: https://www.politico.eu/article/tourism-industry-limbo-following-eu-dropping-us-off-safe-travel-list/
Domestic tourism record, medical marijuana and threats against Kela: Today’s news roundup
Data from Statistics Finland suggests that domestic tourism in Finland reached a record high in July, with local tourists booking more overnight stays at hotels and other guest accommodation than ever before, despite the COVID-19 crisis.
According to a story by Yle, Finland’s National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health (Valvira) has decided to take action against a private practitioner who prescribed medical marijuana to numerous patients across Finland.
In other news, the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa (HUS) has reportedly been struggling to cope with the high demand for COVID-19 tests, while the number of threats made against employees of Kela (Social Insurance Institution of Finland) by customers has doubled since last year.
Domestic tourism in Finland hit new record in July
According to a report by Statistics Finland, local tourists in Finland booked a record number of overnight stays at hotels and other guest accommodation in July. Bookings for business trips rose by 14 per cent while those for leisure increased by 30 per cent from July 2019.
Overnight stays by foreign tourists decreased by a staggering 77 per cent this year compared to July 2019 owing to travel restrictions; however, bookings by residents reached 3.34 million—a two per cent increase from two years ago.
Valvira clamps down on medical marijuana
In a move that has sparked several discussions about Finland’s current drug laws, Valvira has banned a private doctor from prescribing medical marijuana for the first time.
Yle reports that the private practitioner, who works as a neurologist at Mehiläinen in Turku, had written marijuana prescriptions for hundreds of patients with chronic pain across Finland.
According to Valvira, the physician in question endangered their patients by recommending cannabis use without providing a suitable treatment plan. However, several patients have come forward to defend the neurologist’s actions and methodology.
HUS overwhelmed by COVID-19 test requests
HUS is facing an ongoing crisis due to the flood of registrations for COVID-19 tests, which is placing a considerable strain on its resources. Nearly 25,000 people a day register for the test in the hospital district.
Lasse Lehtonen, director of diagnostic services at HUS told Iltalehti that there are no additional medical staff available to administer the tests, and meeting the demand would require pulling valuable resources from other healthcare services.
Kela employees face increasingly threatening behaviour from customers
According to Yle, the number of threats made to members of Kela’s staff has doubled since last year. Customer service executives have had to face the brunt of inappropriate and aggressive behaviour, including threats of violence and racist comments, over the phone.
Kela has received over 500 threatening messages from customers so far this year. The issue was addressed as cause for concern at a recent meeting of the Regional State Administrative Agency for Western and Inland Finland.
Source: https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/news-in-brief/19849-domestic-tourism-record-medical-marijuana-and-threats-against-kela-today-s-news-roundup.html
Is Now The Time To Ban Travel Bans?
An article this week in EuroNews reported that Belgrade, Serbia is seeing an influx of travelers from India who are arriving for a two-week pit-stop–a sort of ‘quarantine holiday’–in order to be allowed entry to the U.S.
Whilst travelers from India are banned in many countries around the world at the moment, due to recent spirals in Covid-19 infection rates (India has registered more cases than any other country, except the U.S.) they are allowed into America–if they spend 14 days in another ‘safe’ country first.
Crucially, Serbia is not part of the EU (nor the accompanying Schengen area allowing free movement across the bloc), so whilst EU residents cannot go to the U.S. on its current travel ban, Serbians can–as can Indian residents who spend two weeks there (the first week must be in quarantine). The irony is that vaccination rates are lower there than across the EU or the U.K.
Loopholes such as this one have been a recurring theme during the pandemic, with The Economist arguing this week that “most covid-19 travel restrictions should be scrapped” and The Atlantic making a case to rethink current international travel restrictions, which currently “make little sense.”
Many people think that Covid-19 will impact upon travel for a long time to come. Indeed, Bloomberg has launched its Travel Reopening Tracker which will now track 1,538 travel combinations between 40 major business and tourism destinations so that travelers can try to keep up–at present, incidentally, only 20% of those destinations are currently considered “more accessible.”
Does that mean, therefore, that travel bans will be with us for some time, or should they be scrapped altogether?
A new report from the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) called Future Scenarios for Global Mobility in the Shadow of Pandemic has identified possible scenarios for how the world might travel, post pandemic. (The MPI is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank in Washington, D.C. dedicated to the analysis of the movement of people worldwide).
The report states that countries make decisions based upon their risk tolerance, vaccination rollouts, as well as the progression and mutation of the virus but crucially, without working together, countries will find themselves creating exclusive tiers of people with different rights regarding travel.
Meghan Benton, the Director for International Research at MPI states that whatever scenario happens to occur, “international mobility will have to navigate a seismic shift in approaches to border management under all plausible scenarios.” Benton adds that “many countries are looking inwards, focused on reducing the threat of the latest troubling variant, but they need to look ahead and work together to safely get the world moving again.”
International travel has always been a function of wealth–which passport someone owns dictates how many countries someone is allowed to enter (and how easily). Note the increase in applications for second passports by the wealthy during Covid-19, particularly from the U.S. or how travel bans altered the nature of people smuggling routes in Europe.
There is a fear, therefore, that travel restrictions will exacerbate the inequalities in the world–note the additional cost of almost £500 (almost $700) for a family of four when arriving into the U.K. from an amber list country during July because of testing requirements. The Economist believes that “international travel could come to feel exclusive, much as it used to in the middle of the 20th century.”
Arguments for rolling back travel restrictions
Many arguments are given for rolling back travel restrictions by advocates who believe they don’t ultimately work and because they increase global inequalities:
- World Health Organization experts were always loathe to recommend the introduction of travel restrictions during a pandemic pre-Covid-19, as reported by Axios, because of discriminatory impacts and because diseases continue to spread underground rather than in plain sight.
- Research conducted at the end of 2020, reported in Nature, showed that travel restrictions worked when they were first introduced during the pandemic, but then lost their effectiveness over time.
- Travel restrictions are difficult to understand, an issue compounded by the fact they change constantly (in response to the virus and internal, political decisions) and are updated every one or two weeks, making it hard to keep up. New research by the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics found that almost 50% of British arrivals into the U.K.–when questioned at the beginning of 2021–said that they found it “difficult” to understand international travel rules (foreign travelers incidentally said they found it much easier when polled).
- Decisions can often feel capricious or badly managed–such as the U.K. reimposing quarantine on fully vaccinated arrivals from 12 August onwards, if they have had two different doses of vaccine, which was originally not the rule when it was changed on 2 August. (It has been common to use two different vaccines across several EU countries, particularly those who started with the AstraZeneca vaccine and then changed to another upon the advice of health regulators).
- The Economist argues that travel restrictions are only valid with new variants of Covid-19, such as the Delta variant, to slow the speed at which it inevitably arrives in a new country. These restrictions should be temporary and then be lifted once the new variant is established (as is the case with the Delta variant now in the U.S.).
- The Economist also makes the case for universal travel rules, which don’t favor political friends over established scientific facts and knowledge–such as accepting all vaccines approved by the WHO. The Economist states, “the right to move around is one of the most precious of all freedoms. It should be curtailed only when limits will clearly save lives. It should be restored as soon as it is safe. In most cases that means now.”
Ultimately, it is extremely difficult to seek international cooperation on the free movement of people during a global pandemic (global climate change accords give an indication of the difficulty and offer an interesting parallel) and it’s politically challenging to reform existing policies, which have already been rolled out and marketed.
There is also a line of thought that believes that when faced with a resurgence of Covid-19 and new variants (and a possible rise over winter 2021), confusing travel rules and regulations might just deter people from traveling, which might be best in the short term, if not the longer term.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexledsom/2021/08/15/is-now-the-time-to-ban-travel-bans/?sh=7bcc7dff6004
Consumer wine knowledge in decline, finds new report
Wine drinkers no longer interested in having an an encyclopaedic knowledge of wine according to new Wine Intelligence research…
Consumers’ interest in learning about wine is on the wane, according to a new report by Wine Intelligence. The new research reveals that wine drinkers’ span of wine knowledge is gradually decreasing and they are less interested in learning about grape varieties, wine styles and wine producing regions.
This trend can be seen most clearly in markets such as the US, Brazil, Germany and Australia, where wine knowledge among consumers has decreased between 2019 and 2021.
UK bucks the trend
The UK, however, bucks the trend and is the only major market to see an increase in the ‘wine knowledge index’, which measures consumer-reported awareness of wine-producing countries, wine-growing regions and wine brands.
‘The wine industry has undoubtedly helped consumers to feel more confident both navigating and enjoying wine, without the need to bring with them an encyclopaedic knowledge,’ says Wine Intelligence’s CEO Lulie Halstead.
‘Wine consumers are being helped by the fact that many of today’s wine labels are both visually appealing and highly successful at explicitly communicating the flavours and tastes inherent to a particular brand,’ she adds.
In contrast to these findings, the report also states that consumer confidence with wine remains stable, which means that instead of relying on wine knowledge to inform their buying decisions consumers are taking their wine-buying cues from elsewhere.
Cognitive offloading
‘A significant contributing factor is ‘cognitive offloading’, says the report. ‘While wine knowledge is being accessed, it is not necessarily being retained, leading to an overall reduction in retained consumer wine knowledge. The wealth of online sources of wine information, easily and rapidly accessible via a smartphone, are enabling buyers to purchase with confidence, without the need to retain hard facts.’
Halstead says that an increasing number of consumers want to quickly access information on the go and eschew deep dives into winemaking stories in favour of simple messaging and layered information. ‘Confidence has become uncoupled with knowledge in recent years, creating a more inclusive wine category – a key necessity if it is to retain market share against challenges from craft beer and RTDs,’ she says.
Source: https://www.decanter.com/wine-news/consumer-wine-knowledge-in-decline-finds-new-report-463824/