The United Arab Emirates, Rwanda and Burundi will be added to the Government’s list of countries with travel bans from 1pm today, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced on Thursday.
There are now 33 countries on the UK’s travel ‘red list,’ which is being enforced in an effort to stop the spread of new Covid-19 variants from South Africa and Brazil.
“People who have been in or transited through these countries will be denied entry, except British, Irish and third country nationals with residence rights who must self-isolate for ten days at home,” Mr Shapps announced on Twitter.
“Passengers must still have proof of a negative test and completed Passenger Locator Form before arrival – or could otherwise face a £500 fine for each,” he added.
Social media influencers in Dubai, who have received widespread criticism for travelling abroad under Tier 4 or lockdown restrictions, including from Home Secretary Priti Patel, will be among the Britons rushing back to the UK –however, they will not face 10 days in a quarantine hotel at their own cost as the Department of Health has yet to get the scheme up and running.
Travel bans and quarantine hotels are part of the tougher travel restrictions announced amid fears of new variants of the virus – Tim Hames, a senior adviser to global consultancy FTI Consulting, warned in an industry conference on Thursday there were likely to be “intense and potentially tighter limits on travel” until May.
Scroll down for the latest travel updates.
11:26 AM
EasyJet criticises Gov. advice against booking summer holidays
It “would be better to look at cancellation policies” than for the Government to issue blanket advice to Britons not to book summer holidays, according to easyJet chief executive Johan Lundgren.
The low-cost airline has just reported losses in excess of £400 million for three months to December
The easyJet boss said he wrote to the Government after foreign secretary Dominic Raab insisted “now is not the time to book a summer holiday” last week.
Mr Lundgren said:
More relevant would be [to say] ‘Choose an airline or holiday company that gives you the confidence to make a booking’. We are leading the industry by offering refunds to customers even if their flight operates. No one else is doing this. Customers can book with confidence.
I did send a note when that comment was made, saying it would be better to look at cancellation policies. You can book [with us] with confidence. Even if your flight operates, you will get your money back in cash.
11:14 AM
China will not recognise British National (Overseas) passports
The Chinese government announced it will no longer recognise the British National (Overseas) passport as a valid travel document or form of identification.
The decision was announced days before a new visa route for Hong Kong nationals looking to move to the UK is due to open.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the visa scheme, which was announced in the wake of Beijing’s national security law being imposed on Hong Kong last year, honours the “profound ties of history and friendship” between the UK and its former colony.
Under the scheme, Hong Kong residents and their dependents would be offered a route to residency and eventual citizenship in the UK, with an estimated 300,000 Hongkongers expected to take advantage of it.
But the announcement by Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian throws new uncertainty around the plan just hours after the UK said it would begin taking applications for BN(O) visas from Sunday.
11:01 AM
Summer staycation searches have doubled year-on-year, says Airbnb
Searches for summer staycations (June, July, August) on Airbnb have more than doubled compared to this time last year, according to the company.
This is in line with recent reports that holiday parks and other self-catering accommodation providers in the UK are seeing a surge in interest for Easter and summer with little clear indication as to when international travel restrictions will lift.
10:47 AM
Virtual travel is finally about to take off – and not for the reasons you’d expect
The real benefits of virtual reality travel won’t be reaped by tech-savvy teens, but by silver surfers, writes Robbie Hodges.
The hottest destination of the next decade? It won’t be far-flung or hyperlocal; it will be hard-coded. If the current trajectory of technological advancement is any indication, then all of us – Mum, Dad, Grandma and the kids – will soon be swapping our sunglasses for hi-tech headsets and holidaying together in “the metaverse”.
A word originally coined by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 science fiction novel, Snow Crash, the metaverse is no longer the stuff of fantasy. Put simply, the metaverse is an emerging, shared online space in which users, embodied by avatars, can socialise safely with friends and family.
As gateways to this alternative reality opened up last year, hundreds of thousands of people checked in. The felted folds of the Faroe Islands might have been closed for business, but that didn’t stop 700,000 visitors (five times the number of tourists who went there in 2019) from heading out on virtual rambles between April and June. As part of the archipelago’s “remote tourism” project, islanders were equipped with high-definition cameras and directed to run, walk and jump by tourists grounded at home via their mobile phones.
Read the full story.
10:40 AM
Labour to force vote on ‘limited’ quarantine hotels plan
Labour will force a vote on the Government’s quarantine hotel plans, as it looks to extend restrictions beyond the “limited” list of 30 hotspot countries.
The opposition will accuse the Government’s plans of being “too little, too late” and say that “limiting restrictions to just a handful of countries puts at risk the gains being made by the vaccine, by exposing us to potentially resistant Covid-19 strains, undermining the huge sacrifices of the British people.”
During the next opposition day debate on Monday, Labour will introduce a motion calling for “a comprehensive hotel quarantine system for all arrivals into the UK”, as well as calling for the Government to publish the scientific evidence on which it has based its current approach.
Nick Thomas-Symonds, shadow home secretary, said: “Labour is calling on the Government to introduce a comprehensive hotel quarantine system for all travellers, in order to shut down the gaping holes in the Government’s plans. The plans have no clear basis in science and fail to recognise that we do not know where the next strains of the virus will emerge from, until it is too late.”
10:35 AM
Australian Open players begin to leave hotel quarantine
Australian Open tennis players have started to leave hotel quarantine after finishing their 14-day isolation period.
Around 500 players will have been let out of quarantine hotels in Melbourne and Adelaide, according to the championship’s organisers.
Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams are among those allowed out on Friday.
In Australia, strict quarantine rules for anyone entering the country.
More than 1,700 players, staff and others tied to the event, which starts on February 8, were flown into Australia on chartered flights in early January.
10:17 AM
‘While Britons are imprisoned, Austrians are encouraged to get out and stay fit’
Cases have plummeted 90% in Austria, and without the sort of draconian rules Britain has adopted, writes Alexander Fiske-Harrison.
10:04 AM
Quarantine hotels could be the ‘nail in the coffin’ for the travel industry
If the Government’s plan for hotel quarantine, adding more countries to the list in response to new variants concerns, lasts beyond April, “no-one will go on holiday overseas” once the blanket ban on non-essential travel lifts, according to Sandals’ UK tour operator.
Karl Thompson, Managing Director of Unique Caribbean Holidays, Sandals and Beaches Resorts’ UK tour operator, said:
A quarantine hotel model [won’t] make a huge difference to our business and our customers whilst the country is on lockdown as people can’t travel. If this proposal […] lasts beyond April, when we are hoping people can travel again, it will be a nail in the coffin for the travel industry. No-one will go on holiday overseas if they must foot the bill for a [ten-day] stay in an airport hotel that they’re not allowed to leave, on top of paying for Covid tests before they depart and, in some cases, isolating in the destination when they arrive, too.
[…] Once the most vulnerable people have been vaccinated which, according to Government claims, will be by the Spring, the country should be in a much better place. The priority must, of course, be on public health but there also needs to be a focus on establishing a blueprint for safe and responsible travel to help rebuild the UK economy and the battered travel industry.
09:47 AM
‘Utterly irresponsible’: Is this the death of the influencer?
With social media stars under fire for poolside pics in Dubai they say are ‘essential travel’, do they belong in a post-pandemic world, asks Anna Hart.
In a year not short on surprises, Wednesday saw Home Secretary Priti Patel launch a scathing attack on social media influencers, actively “showing off in sunny parts of the world”.
As the Government announced tighter restrictions on international journeys, now illegal for leisure purposes, Patel singled out this privileged and blinkered class of traveller for poor examples of Covid compliancy while the NHS is stretched to breaking point and the UK has just passed the grim milestone of 100,000 deaths.
Of course, the backlash against reality TV stars and social media influencers who have shamelessly exploited the loophole permitting “essential work travel” during lockdowns in order to escape to Dubai or the Maldives had already begun.
With most of their followers stuck indoors during the bleakest of British Januarys, juggling childcare with work commitments and dutifully obeying restrictions that stop them travelling several miles away to see their mum or a close friend, it’s hard to imagine more tone-deaf “social media content” than a bikini selfie in a Dubai hotel’s infinity pool, tagged #todaysoffice.
Read the full story.
09:42 AM
Virgin Atlantic: Testing or vaccination must replace quarantine ‘when time is right’
Quarantine must be “replaced entirely” when the public health situation in the UK allows, according to Virgin Atlantic. A spokesperson for the airline told Telegraph Travel:
Public health and protecting the NHS must come first and we recognise the need for UK Government to act now to reduce the risk of Covid-19 variants entering the UK. However, border control policy must be based on science and data and it is important that a clear set of conditions are agreed upfront to allow for the removal of restrictions altogether.
When the time is right, we should aim for 72 hour pre-departure testing or proof of vaccination to replace quarantine entirely, creating the conditions for free movement of goods and people. National lockdown and additional border restrictions will continue to materially delay the recovery of a UK aviation sector under severe strain and depending on the length of restrictions, sector specific support will be needed.
Travel and aviation is vital to the UK’s economic recovery and the emergence of a Global Britain post Brexit.
09:31 AM
Bring in hotel quarantine for all passengers, say SAGE scientists
The partial travel ban targeting only countries with new covid variants is “pointless,” say SAGE scientists, as they urged ministers to extend it to all arrivals into the UK.
They warned that limiting it to 33 “red list” countries covering South America, southern Africa, UAE and Portugal would be ineffective against other emerging strains and travellers who could still enter the UK by going through a third country.
An additional 26 countries where there is no travel ban and only pre-departure testing and quarantine already have reported evidence of the the Brazilian or South African covid strains having spread to them.
England may also be put out of kilter with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland which are considering travel bans that would require all arrivals to quarantine in state-approved hotels.
Read the full story.
09:21 AM
Linking Covid vaccination to people’s passports is a ‘possibility’
A leading professor of outbreak medicine said there is “scope” for a Covid vaccination to be linked to people’s passports.
Speaking at the Institute for Travel and Tourism (ITT)’s virtual forum, Professor Calum Semple, of the University of Liverpool, said such a plan – which has been supported by former Prime Minister Tony Blair – was a “possibility”.
Professor Semple said it was being considered by “a number of experts and government advisors”.
He added: “I think this is acceptable. We do have the technology and we do have the testing ability.”
He said said that in six months to a year: “it will be possible to have had a test that says ‘you’ve had a vaccine, you’re a good responder, you’re likely to be immune for the next year, two years or six months, and have that information on a dynamic app.”
09:06 AM
Dubai’s Covid cases surged amid festive parties
Dubai continued to see parties over Christmas and welcomed holidaymakers who were seeking to escape restrictions in their own countries, but seems to be paying the price to this festive period.
Virus cases have quadrupled since November to almost 4,000 a day. The past fortnight of record-breaking infections has forced the Emirate to introduce some new restrictions, including increasing testing on arrivals and banning live entertainment, even as the United Arab Emirates’ vaccination drive speeds ahead.
It’s bad luck to be the jet-set’s party town during a global pandemic,” said Jim Krane, research fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute and author of Dubai: The Story of the World’s Fastest City, told the Financial Times.
Hotel occupancy rose to an average 71 per cent in December, the busiest month for hospitality since the pandemic began, the newspaper reports.
08:50 AM
Tourism ‘worst year in tourism history’, WTO figures reveal
Tourism suffered its worst year on record in 2020, but 2021 could prove even worse, according to the UN World Tourism Organisation’s (UNWTO) latest research.
UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili said: “While much has been made in making safe international travel a possibility, we are aware that the crisis is far from over.”
The global tourism body said there were one billion fewer international arrivals in 2020, down 74 per cent, with a loss in export revenues of USD$1.3 trillion, 11 times worse than during the 2009 global financial crisis.
Up to 120 million jobs could be lost due to the pandemic, it warned.
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Europe recorded a 70 per cent decline in arrivals in 2020
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Asia Pacific’s arrivals were down 84 per cent
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Middle East and Africa: 75 per cent
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The Americas: 69 per cent
The UNWTO said that nearly a third of respondents on its Panel of Experts survey feared conditions will hit new lows this year before improving in 2022. A quarter expect a similar performance while 45 per cent believe 2021 will be better than 2020.
08:41 AM
Australia considers resuming trans-Tasman travel bubble
Australia may resume its travel bubble with New Zealand in coming days, its health minister said on Friday, as the state of Victoria eased border controls ahead of hosting the first tennis Grand Slam on 2021, the Australian Open.
Health officials are reassessing daily a pause on Australia’s travel corridor with New Zealand after the Pacific nation’s strong response to an outbreak of a contagious strain, while borders between Australia’s two most populous states may next week open freely for the first time this year.
The trans-Tasman bubble, which has allowed New Zealand residents to travel to Australia without quarantining, was frozen after New Zealand confirmed its first case in months on Monday of a variant that emerged in South Africa.
08:32 AM
What happened yesterday?
Here’s a recap:
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Quarantine hotels will be a ‘death knell’ for travel
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Ski holidays cancelled until April
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CAA clears Boeing 737 MAX for takeoff
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Dubai is luring remote workers with free vaccines
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Icelanders get Covid vaccine ‘passports’
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Germany to ban travellers from Britain and Portugal
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World’s first ‘airport for flying cars’ to be built in Coventry
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Surge in autumn bookings amidst doubts over summer holidays
Now onto today’s news.
Originally published
