Rejections are also increasing, with Australian Border Force knocking back more than 10,000 applicants in June
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The number of Australians applying to travel overseas is surging, leading to an increase in exemptions despite efforts to crack down on unnecessary travel.
According to a Guardian Australia analysis of Australian Border Force statistics, 34,616 exemptions were sought in June, up from 23,836 in May.
Continue reading...EU vaccine passport scheme omits Covishield jab, despite it offering same protection as UK-made one
British travellers hoping to visit Europe this summer face an extra hurdle as it emerged that those vaccinated with Indian-manufactured AstraZeneca jabs would not automatically skip quarantine.
Under the EU vaccine passport scheme, people given the AstraZeneca jab produced by the Serum Institute of India (SII) would not automatically avoid quarantine and mandatory testing when travelling in Europe.
Continue reading...Turkey, Ecuador and South Africa will be among hardest hit as pandemic-related losses reach $2.4tn, says UN report
The cost to the global economy of the tourism freeze caused by Covid-19 could reach $4tn (£2.9tn) by the end of this year, a UN body has said, with the varying pace of vaccine rollouts expected to cost developing nations and tourist centres particularly dear.
Nations including Turkey and Ecuador will be among the hardest hit by the severe disruption to international tourism, with holiday favourites such as Spain, Greece and Portugal also badly affected. Pandemic-related losses have reached up to $2.4tn this year, according to a report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad). The potential lost tourism-related income in 2021 is equivalent to the effect of switching off 85% of the UK economy, while projected losses over 2020 and 2021 could equate to removing Germany from the global economy for two years.
Continue reading...The pandemic has hit tourism but retraining and a range of initiatives have enabled staff to stay and even hit the slopes
Masiane Nthina made her way nervously from the kit room to the slopes. Shuffling with skis on her feet for the first time is not easy.
Nthina, an intern at the Lesotho Tourism Development Corporation, lives close to Afriski Mountain Resort, but had never visited it. She had always viewed the resort as the preserve of the elite and thought that on her meagre wages she could not afford to go.
Continue reading...Why have some brilliant innovations – from rolling luggage to electric cars – taken so long to come to market? Macho culture has a lot to answer for
In 1972 an American luggage executive unscrewed four castors from a wardrobe and fixed them to a suitcase. Then he put a strap on his contraption and trotted it gleefully around his house.
This was how Bernard Sadow invented the world’s first rolling suitcase. It happened roughly 5,000 years after the invention of the wheel and barely one year after Nasa managed to put two men on the surface of the moon using the largest rocket ever built. We had driven an electric rover with wheels on a foreign heavenly body and even invented the hamster wheel. So why did it take us so long to put wheels on suitcases? This has become something of a classic mystery of innovation.
Continue reading...A French start-up aims to run ‘hotels on rails’ from Paris to 12 cities across Europe, including Edinburgh, from 2024
Less than a decade after Europe’s night trains appeared to have reached the end of the line, a new French start-up has announced plans for a network of overnight services out of Paris from 2024.
Midnight Trains is hoping post-Covid interest in cleaner, greener travel will generate interest in its proposed “hotels on rails”, which aims to connect the French capital to 12 other European destinations, including Edinburgh.
Continue reading...The islands has been feeling the weight of a tourism industry that has ballooned to what many believe is beyond the islands’ capacity
On a recent Sunday morning, Makua Beach looks like the picture of paradise.
A stretch of soft, yellow sand lies on a strip of land between the lush Waianae mountain range and the deep blue Pacific Ocean on the north-west coast of Oahu. Waves crash against rocks along the beach, and a monk seal can be seen swimming near the shore.
Continue reading...Thai region hopes jabs and ‘sandbox’ scheme will allow tourists to return and rejuvenate economy
In normal times, the convention centre at Phuket’s Angsana Laguna resort hosts extravagant weddings and luxury business summits. Since April, it has served as one of seven centres on the frontline of the island’s Covid vaccination campaign. Behind the room’s white satin curtains, medical staff in hair nets and blue aprons administer 1,800 doses each day.
The island is racing to vaccinate as many people as possible in the hope that, if 70% of the population are vaccinated before 1 July, Phuket will become the first Thai destination to reopen to foreign tourists.
Continue reading...The resort of Saint-Valery on the Bay of the Somme normally sees thousands of British and Belgian visitors, but this year its restaurants and hotels are half-empty
With the approach of the summer holidays, the two French seaside towns of Saint-Valery-sur-Somme and Le Crotoy would normally be gearing up for the annual wave of tourists from neighbouring Belgium and, above all, from the UK.
The resorts sit opposite each other across the majestic Bay of the Somme, a wetland of shifting sands and tides where the tranquil river suddenly expands into a spectacular estuary opening up into the Channel. The bay is a popular stop-off for British travellers heading to Paris and the south of France, as well as a place of pilgrimage for its war memorials, museums, cemeteries and battle sites.
Continue reading...British tourists face continued restrictions as bloc opens up to other vaccinated travellers
British tourists face continued restrictions on travelling to the EU this summer even as the bloc opens up to others, including residents of the United States.
Eight countries are to be added to a list of countries from where the EU says non-essential travel is safe, but the UK has not been included.
Continue reading...Armed with long experience, our writer gives the lowdown on getting there, the best equipment and picking your spot for a great night in the wild
When I bivvy I’m not in search of sleep. I know I’ll wake up frequently, feeling restricted by my sleeping bag. Bivvying is camping at its simplest: sleeping outside without a tent and minimal gear.
It isn’t about a comfortable night’s rest. It’s about squeezing an adventure into a humdrum week; it’s about being in nature, hearing hedgehogs snuffling and waking to the dawn chorus. It’s a short, sharp dose of escapism that has become even more restorative in the past 15 months. And, while I’ve bivvyed on Dartmoor, on Scotland’s west coast and in places in-between, most of the time I’ve been within 10 miles of my home in Bournemouth.
Continue reading...As a government civil servant, I was burnt out from working on Brexit and Covid and needed a change of scene. Trekking the length of Britain is just the tonic
It’s 7.30pm on 29 April and I’m standing alone on the highest hill in this part of Cornwall. The sun is bright and eager, dancing with dainty flashes on the waves west towards Newquay. But I’m wrapped in everything I have – two pairs of thick socks, leggings, trousers, T-shirt, two long-sleeved T-shirts, jumper, fleece, jacket, snood, hat – and still the wind reaches its long fingers down my neck to grip my spine. It is one degree above freezing; in less than a week it will snow on Dartmoor.
In fact, this is more than a hill. This is Castle an Dinas, one of those iron age forts to which schoolchildren are taken to be underwhelmed by ditches and mounds. The dog walkers who came up earlier weren’t cowed by antiquity: each allowed their charges to mess, tongues wagging. Watching the deposits stirs in me something I was repressing. For the four days I’ve been on the road, public toilets have been there when needed. A threshold is about to be crossed. I’m going wild.
Continue reading...Country confounds post-Covid predictions as transatlantic holidaymakers flood in ready to spend
A fresh wind blows down Adrianou. Seated in front of his rug store on the street that cuts through the heart of ancient Athens, Theo Iliadis takes in the scene. At 47, he’s seen “a lot of bad stuff” in recent years. The global pandemic couldn’t have come at a worse time for Greece, already gutted by prolonged economic crisis.
But barely a month after the tourist-dependent country opened its doors, the entrepreneur is in ebullient mood. There’s a glint in his eye and a lightness in the air of the carpet-stacked cavern behind him. “Americans are in town,” he smiles. “Business is good, the loom is good and I’ve got drinks on ice.”
Continue reading...In a Mediterranean city where summer is lived outdoors, residents delight in revelling in the streets once more
In a city as boisterous as Marseille, a summer curfew can be considered something of an affront. Summer is when the Marseillais live outdoors. From May to September, a post-work apéro can easily stretch well into the night. And at the weekend anything goes. As the days became sunnier, France’s second city began to chafe under an early evening curfew that had been in place since October. But on Wednesday there was some respite, with the nightly national curfew moved from 9pm to 11pm.
The city centre squares where the Marseillais come to play – Cours d’Estienne d’Orves, Cours Julien and La Plaine – heaved with revellers delighted to be out beyond sunset. Around the Old Port of Marseille, happy crowds converged on bars, shisha cafes and restaurants. On the corniche, joggers took advantage of the cooler twilight air. The Maghreb-inflected rap for which the city is famous drifted from passing cars.
Continue reading...‘Don’t do as we did,’ says Pippa Biddle, who highlights colonial structure of industry where unqualified Western tourists pay to volunteer abroad
Seven years ago, Pippa Biddle wrote a blog post about volunteering abroad. She recounted her struggles speaking Spanish to children living with HIV in the Dominican Republic and how local people in Tanzania would spend all night redoing the construction work she and her classmates had done poorly.
“Taking part in international aid where you aren’t particularly helpful is not benign,” Biddle wrote. “It’s detrimental.”
Continue reading...Holidays, especially abroad, are off the cards for many this summer. So it’s good to remember they aren’t always the idyllic break we dream of. Here are our readers worst experiences
We went on holiday for Christmas to a friend’s parents house in Marlo – a village in Victoria, Australia. We got there on Christmas Eve to find the only shop was pretty bare – so Christmas lunch was a frozen turkey roll, Fanta, chips and some frozen peas. I made a Christmas tree out of a stick and some toilet rolls, determined to be cheerful. On Christmas morning, I woke up and went outside. It was nice and hot – yay, beach day! Then I stepped on a very large brown snake on the doorstep and screamed. I found another snake in the lounge room, one in the toilet, and others all around the house. It was my idea of hell. I had no idea whether they were poisonous but it didn’t matter. I was terrified. Lesley Podesta, retired, Australia
Continue reading...Ban on huge vessels passing St Mark’s Square proves to be temporary after liner docks in city for first time in 17 months
Anti-cruise ship campaigners in Venice claim they were “deceived” by the Italian government as hundreds protested against huge vessels docking in the historic city’s port on Saturday.
Residents were caught by surprise on Thursday when a cruise liner sailed into the lagoon city for the first time since the pandemic began, despite prime minister Mario Draghi’s government declaring that the ships would be banned from the historic centre. The 92,000 tonne ship MSC Orchestra collected 650 passengers before leaving for Bari, in southern Italy, on Saturday.
Continue reading...Tui says half of its passengers booked to visit Portugal in June are still planning to travel
As recriminations continue over the UK government’s decision to remove Portugal from the travel green list, many Britons have decided to press ahead with overseas holiday plans, even if that means going against official advice.
At 4.45pm on Sunday 6 June, Pont-Aven, one of Brittany Ferries’ flagship cruise liners, will leave Plymouth for Santander in Spain – the company’s first sailing on that route for eight months. The UK government says people should not travel to amber list locations such as Spain and advises against all but essential travel to the country – but that has not stopped the company, or the more than 800 people making the trip.
Continue reading...EasyJet boss Johan Lundgren accuses government of tearing up ‘its own rulebook’ as tourism industry feels pain
Tour operators and airlines lost more than £2bn in value after the government removed Portugal from the “green list” of countries exempt from significant travel restrictions, prompting dismay and anger within the hard-hit tourism industry.
Less than a month after Portugal became the first big destination to be granted green list status, prompting a much-needed boom in holiday sales, the government reversed the decision.
Continue reading...Portugal has been removed from the government’s ‘green list’ of destinations from which people can return to England without having to quarantine, and no extra countries have been added.
The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, raised concerns of a new coronavirus mutation and rising cases in Portugal, adding the UK had to put ‘safety first’ ahead of a national reopening on 21 June