Will international travel return in 2021? What we know now

(CNN) – There is hope: Summer holidays abroad can largely happen this year.

Vaccinations and testing are the way forward, say Charles and other industry experts, but what is just as desperately needed is greater consistency and coordination across borders.

“When you do not have a coordinated global approach, it is very difficult for the industry to continue, especially if the rules of the game basically change every day,” said Luis Felipe de Oliveira, Director General of the International Airport Council International. said. (ACI), a global trade organization representing the world’s airports.

There is much more work to be done to iron out test protocols that enable globetrotters to choose quarantines and find ways to share information about the boundaries of vaccination and testing smoothly and safely.

Sovereign countries still decide what is best for them, and look at their own health situations and economies, but progress has been made to make countries worldwide look more at the great economic power that travels.

According to ACI’s de Oliveira, international air traffic in the summer could return to 50% to 60% of previous levels in the summer.

Here are some of the obstacles travelers must face, and the industry will have to overcome as travel increases:

Eliminate quarantines

Mandatory – and shifting – quarantine requirements “kill the process of restarting the industry”, de Oliveira said.

When he spoke to CNN Travel, de Oliveira was in Montreal on day 12 of a 14-day quarantine after returning from a business trip to the Dominican Republic, followed by a personal trip to Mexico. He has been quarantined four times in the past seven months and spent 56 days at home without the possibility of going out.

This kind of time investment, coupled with the confusion surrounding the requirements – both for going home – is a major deterrent for people who are otherwise willing to travel. Safety is essential, but those in the industry are advocating for a more nuanced, layered approach.

A test mechanism is needed to avoid quarantines, says Tori Emerson Barnes, executive vice president of public affairs and policy at the National Nonprofit American Travel Association, which advocates for a science-driven, risk-based approach to reopening international travel. “especially look at eliminating quarantines if you have the right test protocol.”

Although vaccines will be critical, Oliveira and others say the travel industry can absolutely not afford to wait until the vaccinations are fully administered worldwide, making testing an essential part of the equation for safer travel in the short term. .

While US Travel will encourage people to be vaccinated and to go test in places where quarantines are needed, the association is not looking for cover for access, Barnes said. “We would not say that you need a vaccine to travel.”

She acknowledges that it is a challenge to determine who is responsible for creating and implementing consistent protocols. “The government does not necessarily want to,” she said, “and I do not know that the private sector should have that responsibility.”

Yet countries and organizations around the world are making progress in coordinating common approaches, says Alessandra Priante, Regional Director for Europe of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), a specialized agency of the United Nations.

In a number of cases, a coordinated way of testing is already being implemented, and the next step at the global level is detection, says Priante, “to make sure we can share a certain amount of data, because if we do not do it to to share the data, then we are not really able to have all the information we have must has. ‘

Get vaccinated … and prove it

Some of this information probably relates to vaccinations. The UK vaccination program is well underway. Other countries have also made significant progress, and the United States’ program is slowly picking up.

Travel confusion can also increase as more people start moving around in the spring and additional requirements for negative tests and proof of vaccination come into play.

We need a harmonized global approach to recognize and accurately share vaccination and testing information, Oliveira said.

Current practices – with printed paper documents from unknown laboratories in languages ​​unknown to those investigating them, or a jumble of unlinked databases around the world – are less than ideal.

Even when vaccines are widely available, not everyone will take them and researchers are looking at whether the virus can still be transmitted through vaccines. Masking, social distance, sanitation and other safety layers will long be part of daily life – and travel -.

Measures in the meantime

Seamless international travel will not take place overnight.

Unfortunately, like most things related to Covid, these measures are subject to change.

“Corridors can be useful if they are consistent, but up and down again and again, on short notice open and closed, and that has not helped consumers at all,” said Paul Charles, the travel industry consultant.

The big goal: Mix with strangers

The UNWTO’s Priante hopes the ups and downs will soon subside as the world misses.

“What I regret most is that all that tourism is about is to trust the unknown … the beauty of exploration, to meet someone you’ve never met before from a different culture, a different one. nation, everything is on guard and at stake because people tell us ‘trust no one, cross the sidewalk, wear your mask, do not mix,’ she said from her home in Madrid.

And although Priante and her colleagues have taken every precaution and continued to travel and work to address the global crisis that threatens the industry’s livelihood, she wants to see more people travel safely.

“We want to get the spirit of tourism back into the hearts of people. Because tourism is about building memories … and we want to return to it, we want to become the industry of beautiful memories again.”