Vaccination passports must become essential travel documents to restart international tourism.
The recommendation comes from the Global Tourism Crisis Committee, which met in Madrid this week to discuss measures to ensure the safe resumption of international travel. It called on international health and travel organizations to step up coordination of a standardized digital certification system, as well as harmonized testing protocols.
The meeting, organized by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), took place against the backdrop of increasing cases of coronavirus and new strains of the virus calling on the UK to close all travel routes, and to quarantine all arrivals to the UK must take place and a total ban. on arrival from South America and Portugal.
UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili said: “The introduction of vaccines is a step in the right direction, but the restart of tourism cannot wait. Vaccines should be part of a broader, coordinated approach that includes certificates and passports for safe cross-border travel. ”
Dr Richard Dawood, a specialist in travel medicine at the Fleet Street Clinic in London, said evidence of vaccination to travel is inevitable. ‘It will not really be our choice – [vaccine passports] will de facto be a requirement by individual countries to prove immunity. ‘
He said existing international health regulations, for example the requirement for yellow fever certificate to enter certain countries, mean that the framework for a global approach already exists. “The groundwork has been laid.” The problem is about implementing a secure system. ‘At the moment, people in the UK are getting some paperwork once they are vaccinated. It’s not exactly safe. There needs to be a fair consideration at some point about how we will keep records of vaccinations without taxing the NHS. [For health passports to work] we need a way to verify vaccines. ”
Some travel companies have already made vaccinations mandatory for travel. Saga requires that its passengers have had both doses of the vaccine on their voyages, at least 14 days before departure. In November, Alan Joyce, head of Qantas, told Australia’s Nine Network that passengers must prove they were vaccinated before boarding a flight.
However, some experts point to several barriers to health gateways, including the existence of different vaccines with different levels of efficacy, how long immunity lasts, and whether vaccinated people can still spread the virus to others. And not all travel agencies support the idea of vaccination certificates.
The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) described them as discriminatory. “We are in the early stages of vaccine development. “If you make vaccines mandatory, it means many people will not be able to fly, even if they are not free of Covid,” a WTTC spokesman said. have a scheme where travelers test before their trip to prove that they are Covid-free. ‘
He added that the lack of international coordination on Covid safety is an important bloc to start the journey again and increase consumer confidence. “There’s a crazy paving of rules and regulations that most people find so difficult to navigate that it undermines the will of the journey.”
Mixed messages from the UK government are also frustrating for travel companies. Derek Moore of the Association of Independent Tour Operators said the government was “shooting wildlife in all directions and leaving bloodshed behind”.
“At the moment, vaccination is well under way and it seems to be very successful. Our clients seem to understand better than ministers; our customers (well over 50) know that they will soon be vaccinated for self-protection. ”
Moore said the remarks made by Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Health Minister Dominic Raab earlier this week warned that they did not want to go on holiday abroad this summer, frightening people and putting them off unnecessarily to discuss.
Some travel companies have shown strong interest in overseas travel, despite tightened border controls and warnings from ministers. But Moore pointed out that this ‘increase’ in discussions came from no position. ‘There are still a lot of people who do not want to discuss. And comments from ministers like Preeti Patel who say ‘it’s too early to speculate about travel restrictions’ do not help. ”
Last year was the worst year on record for tourism. The WTO predicts that international tourist arrivals will fall by 70-75% by 2020, or a billion fewer arrivals, resulting in an economic loss of US $ 2 trillion in world GDP.