Travel

• [New] While the vaccine roll-out will continue to reduce case numbers in the UK, public health authorities must prepare for an increase in infections now that domestic holidaying has resumed, albeit with restrictions, and if international holiday travel is reinstated later in the year.
• [New] American Airlines is expanding its summer schedule in a bet that the resurgence of travel demand will continue as more people get vaccinated.
• [New] Last week, the Japanese government revised its volcanic hazard map for Mount Fuji for the first time in 17 years.
• [New] Texas has joined a group of states that will not require or will prohibit the use of a vaccine passport, a record indicating a person has received the Covid-19 vaccine.
• [New] Some restrictions will lift in England on holiday travel, but people will only be able to book self-catering accommodation with members of their own household.
• [New] Shot passports are gaining more traction internationally, with the passes widely used in Israel already and plans moving forward to implement them for travel within Europe.
• [New] Mandatory hotel quarantine will add an additional financial burden for international students, and we can not imagine that its introduction will not affect the numbers of international students coming to Dublin in 2022.
• [New] In Singapore, there are 360 million rides trips or taxi trips per year, and we will not have 360 million flights per year.
• [New] There might be less economic pressure for the U.S. to reopen its borders - the U.S. is more protected than most countries because of the size of its domestic market that can benefit from a summer without international travel.
• [New] Every weekend from Saturday until the end of April, Maharashtra's 125 million people will be confined to their homes unless travelling or shopping for food or medicine.
• [New] The number of travelers who enroll in the oversea medical tourism through its platform increased fivefold over the previous year, and more than 500,000 Chinese visitors are expected to go on medical tourism.
• [New] Green countries will require a PCR test for travellers, which costs over £100 each, once they arrive back in the UK, while amber and red countries will require holidaymakers to quarantine as well.
• [New] Travel and leisure stocks hit a record high this week, as markets expect that 2021's tourist season will be stronger than last year.
• [New] Fear of the global pandemic is definitely present among travellers, making people to be more careful, so in 2021, trips in groups are absent or are very rare.
• [New] The average cost of a PCR test in the UK is £120, meaning the cost of travel could rise by an extra £600 for a family of four, on top of flights and accommodation costs.
• [New] Travellers returning from green countries will need to take a pre-departure test as well as further tests on or before the second day of their return to the UK.
• [New] The Secretary of State for Transport, Grant Shapps said that a traffic light system of countries will be produced in the next few weeks, with red countries required a paid - for, 10-day quarantine at a hotel when they arrive back in the U.K.
• [New] The Biden administration has said it will not mandate vaccine passports, a point it reiterated this week, but it is working on standards the private sector can adopt.
• [New] Since no benign reason is apparent, the use of vaccine passports along with a banking reset could issue in a totalitarianism unlike the world has ever seen.
• [New] Singapore hopes that both countries can harmonize documentation for tourists as a way of resetting air travel.
• [New] As the U.S. and U.K. vaccinate their populations much faster than initially anticipated, two disparate concepts have been swirling online in English-language vaccine discourse: the moral need for global vaccine equity and the consumer-driven desire for vaccine passports.

Last updated: 17 April 2021