Travel Archives - EUNews24

EU Drops U.S. From List Of COVID-Safe Countries For Travel

admin — Tue, 31 Aug 2021 07:53:03 +0000

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European Union governments agreed on Monday to remove the United States from the EU’s safe travel list, meaning U.S. visitors and those from five other countries are likely to face tighter controls, such as COVID-19 tests and quarantines.

Israel, Kosovo, Lebanon, Montenegro, and North Macedonia have also been taken off. The list seeks to unify travel rules across the bloc, although it does not bind individual EU nations, which are free to determine their own border policies.

Already some EU countries, such as Germany and Belgium, categorize the United States as red, requiring tests and quarantines, while for neighbors France and the Netherlands, the United States is classified as safe.

The list is largely compiled based on the COVID-19 situation in each country, with reciprocity also a factor.

Average daily U.S. COVID-19 cases have risen to more than 450 per million people in the week to Aug 28, compared with below 40 in mid-June when the European Union added the United States to its list, figures from Our World in Data shows.

Case rates for Israel, Kosovo, and Montenegro are even higher, the data shows.

The EU safe list now comprises 17 countries, including Canada, Japan, and New Zealand.

The bloc still lets in most non-EU visitors who are fully vaccinated, although tests and periods of quarantine can apply, depending on the EU country of arrival.

Despite EU appeals, Washington does not allow European citizens to visit freely. The bloc itself has been divided between those concerned about the lack of reciprocity and increased U.S. cases and others more reliant on tourism and reluctant to restrict U.S. travelers.

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UK To Keep Quarantine Rules For Travellers From France

admin — Sat, 17 Jul 2021 06:35:54 +0000

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(Reuters) – Britain said on Friday that it was scrapping a planned easing of coronavirus rules for travellers from France, which had been due to take effect on Monday, because of the continued presence of the Beta variant of COVID first identified in South Africa.

Anyone arriving from France will have to quarantine at home or in other accommodation for five to 10 days, even if they are fully vaccinated against COVID, Britain’s health ministry said.

This quarantine requirement will end as planned on Monday for fully vaccinated travellers from other countries in Britain’s ‘amber’ category of coronavirus risk, which includes most of Europe. Just over two-thirds of British adults are fully vaccinated.

Monday sees the end of the majority of coronavirus rules in England, including most legal obligations to wear masks. But foreign travel will remain subject to quarantine and testing requirements.

“With restrictions lifting on Monday across the country, we will do everything we can to ensure international travel is conducted as safely as possible, and protect our borders from the threat of variants,” health minister Sajid Javid said.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, France was Britain’s second-most popular travel destination after Spain, and the news comes just a week before school holidays start in England, when millions would typically seek to cross the Channel.

The change drew an angry reaction from global airline body IATA, which said Britain’s travel restrictions and short-notice changes were out of line with those elsewhere in the world.

“The UK is entrenching itself as an outlier in its confused approach to travel. This, in turn, is destroying its own travel sector and the thousands of jobs that rely on it,” Willie Walsh, director-general of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), told Reuters.

Truck drivers will continue to be exempt from the quarantine requirement, but it will affect most other travellers, including those transiting through France from elsewhere in Europe.

Britain is currently reporting around 10 times as many COVID cases as France, due to the rapid spread of the Delta variant of COVID first identified in India, but has few cases of the Beta variant found in France.

Quarantine for arrivals from France was “a precautionary measure … while we continue to assess the latest data and track prevalence of the Beta variant,” Britain’s health ministry said.

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Italy Bans Cruise Liners From Venice, After Years Of Hesitation

admin — Wed, 14 Jul 2021 05:36:33 +0000

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Italy on Tuesday banned cruise liners from Venice lagoon to defend its ecosystem and heritage, moving to end years of hesitation and putting the demands of residents and culture bodies above those of the tourist industry.

The government decided to act after the United Nations cultural organization UNESCO threatened to put Italy on a blacklist for not banning liners from the World Heritage site, cabinet sources said.

The ban will take effect from August 1, barring ships weighing more than 25,000 tonnes from the shallow Giudecca Canal that leads past Piazza San Marco, the city’s most famous landmark.

“I am proud of a commitment that had been honored,” Culture Minister Dario Franceschini said in a tweet announcing the cabinet’s approval of the decree, confirming a previous Reuters report.

The legislation, which is likely to affect the business of cruise companies such as Carnival Cruises, provides compensation for firms and workers involved, a culture ministry statement said.

Carnival cruises were not immediately available to comment.

Venice residents and the international community have been urging governments for years to ban large ships passing through the lagoon, polluting and threatening the stability of its buildings and fragile ecosystem.

Such concerns clash with the interests of port authorities and tour operators who say the city needs the business offered by the cruise industry.

The 25,000-ton threshold will mean only small passenger ferries and goods vessels can use the Giudecca, excluding all cruise liners which typically weigh at least four times as much and can reach more than 200,000 tons.

Francesco Galietti, Italian director of the international cruise industry trade association CLIA, said the group welcomed an alternative route for cruise ships and he called the latest government move “a major step forward”.

NO DOCKING POINT

Rome has passed legislation numerous times in the past to limit liners’ access to one of the world’s most famous tourist sites, but an alternative docking point is not yet ready.

Residents protested in June when the 92,000 tonnes MSC Orchestra sailed through the lagoon en route for Croatia and Greece, attracting the attention of international media.

In April, Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s government approved a decree to build a terminal outside the lagoon where passenger vessels over 40,000 tons and container ships can berth. The call for bids to build the terminal was published on June 29.

In the meantime, large boats were told to dock at the industrial port of Marghera, but this intermediate solution is not yet ready because Marghera lacks a suitable docking point for liners.

The government’s decree appoints a special commissioner to fast-track the docking station at Marghera.

Alessandro Santi, who heads Federagenti, a national shipping lobby, said the government was taking no account of the industry with an approach that was “regrettable and creates resentment”.

He accused Rome of listening to UNESCO and international culture lobbyists while ignoring local “citizens and business people”.

“Limiting the passage of ships won’t solve the difficulties of Venice as a city,” he said.

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Uncertainty Game: Worries And Refound Happiness Of Tourists In Europe

admin — Tue, 13 Jul 2021 06:20:11 +0000

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They’re back! Foreign tourists can once again be seen and heard strolling the streets of European cities. But despite Europe throwing open its doors, tourists say traveling during the pandemic is complicated.

Since June 9, tourists can visit Europe again, depending on the health situation in their country of origin, and the vaccination record of the traveler.

Among the different measures that can apply is proof of full vaccination more than two weeks before travel, a certificate of Covid recovery less than six months before travel, a negative RT-PCR or antigen test, health form, quarantine, or self-isolation of seven to 10 days.

The differences feed into the uncertainty that travelers face.

“One day you need this, another day that. When we arrived at the airport, we were asked to fill out new papers, even though we had already filled out several,” remarked Brandon McDaniel, a Texas businessman who was on a five-week trip with his family.

His wife Crystal, a designer, added: “We know that it will be very expensive after a while to do all the tests required to enter each country, but if that’s what it takes to be able to travel again, we will do it.”

The United States is on a “green” list of countries according to a scale established in France in mid-June, which means people from there do not need a test if they have been fully vaccinated.

“Americans have wanted to come back for some time,” noted Corinne Menegaux, head of the Paris tourism office.

“In all surveys, we see that Paris is still the main destination for them. And since vaccination campaigns began there earlier, many have been inoculated, which makes traveling easier,” she added.

– Not many tourists –

Despite the reopening, the number of US tourists visiting Paris is down by 85 percent from the level in June 2019, and arrivals by foreign tourists, in general, are down by 60 percent, the tourism office says.

“In 2019, there were 10 million people over the summer. In 2020 we welcomed two million and this year we expect between four and five million,” Menegaux said.

Denis Farias, who runs a souvenir shop near the landmark Eiffel Tower, said: “There are really no more tourists in Paris at the moment.

“Two years ago there were five of us (working) in the shop, now I am on my own.”

Which is ok with many of the tourists.

“Since there are fewer people, you can take the time to do more things, spend less time in line, it’s a relaxing atmosphere,” observed Mohammed Charpenel, who works in the real-estate sector in Dubai.

“It’s happiness again,” he concluded.

The tourism numbers may be down in part to the uncertainty of whether Europe would allow in tourists for the summer, which discouraged some people when making their vacation plans months ago.

“The worst part was the waiting. We had booked in March but we didn’t know when France would reopen,” Chicago teacher Martin Douglass said.

“Today, traveling is like gambling.”

– In Madrid –

1,300 kilometers to the south in the Spanish capital, tourists told a different story.

“My plane was full,” said Luke Johnson, a 19-year-old student from Denver, Colorado.

“We would have liked to go to Germany and the Netherlands, but we would have had to make a quarantine.”

Elena Schupp, 56, a dual US-Spanish national who lives in South Carolina, said she made it to Madrid via Dallas with her daughter, despite numerous measures that made things a bit complicated.

“What will it be like for those who are not technically minded,” she asked.

“I know, for example, that my mother would never have been able to do it!”

From January through April, Spain welcomed 1.8 million foreign tourists, according to the national statistics institute.

That leaves the country well shy of its 2021 target of 45 million.

Euromonitor International, a market research company, has estimated that there will be 61 percent fewer Chinese visitors to Western Europe this year, despite a continent-wide digital Covid certificate designed to ease travel restrictions.

– In Venice –

Foreign tourists could also be found ambling along the canals of Venice, although in far fewer numbers than usual.

“Less tourists so it’s better for me!” said 34-year-old Ann Fang from Arizona.

She said she had already been vaccinated, so that didn’t pose a problem, but that there was a bit of paperwork.

“I think it’s a little more difficult because of all the documentation to come to Europe, but I got here,” she said.

Even those from “red” countries who need to request permission to enter Europe manage to make it.

Kokulo Lawuobahsuno, 33, from Liberia, acknowledged he was a bit worried at first.

“But then I just followed the requirements, it wasn’t a problem for me,” he said.

“I did my test, I’m fully vaccinated.”

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