Global report: first tourists arrive in Greece as Brazil passes 60,000 deaths

Spain and Portugal reopen border as global tourism industry predicted to lose up to £2.6tn

The first tourist flights in four months landed on the Greek island of Crete, and Spain and Portugal reopened their land border as European countries continued to ease travel restrictions, as Brazil recorded 60,000 deaths.

A charter plane carrying 172 passengers from Hamburg landed at Heraklion airport on Crete at 8am, minutes after another aircraft had arrived from the Czech Republic, re-establishing the island’s air links with the outside world.

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‘Escape the pandemic in paradise’: Fiji opens its borders seeking billionaires

Prime minister looks to attract ‘VIPs’ to help restore country’s battered economy which is heavily dependent on tourism

After months of strict Covid-19 lockdowns and resolutely closed borders, Fiji is open – for billionaires.

The prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, has announced the country is looking to attract “VIPs” to help restore Fiji’s paralysed tourism-dependent economy.

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Britons to be allowed to holiday abroad from July via ‘air bridges’

Ministers also expected to end policy of quarantining arrivals to the UK for 14 days

Overseas holidays will be given the green light from early next month, with the government expected to suspend the 14-day quarantine period for a series of countries and also to set up so-called air bridge arrangements for overseas destinations.

While the full list of countries involved is still being confirmed, the initial phase of travel opening up is expected to involve European nations including France, Greece, Spain and possibly Portugal, with other potentially more distant locations to follow.

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‘It is such a fleeting thing’: Hobart residents flock to witness the Disappearing Tarn

The azure pool only appears after heavy rains, but cold, wet weather hasn’t deterred locals from taking a dip

On kunanyi/Mount Wellington, 200mm of rainfall has transformed a rocky patch of forest into a striking pool. It’s freezing cold, but the water is clear and blue.

The Disappearing Tarn appears only after a heavy downpour. It’s shrouded in a layer of mystery among visitors and scientists alike: geomorphologist Kevin Kiernan speculates its arresting blue colour may be a result of fine sediments in the water as it pools over depressions in the land. At the bottom of this basin, organic matter rots and occasionally releases bubbles.

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‘Go Ape gone Viking’ – Denmark’s newest treetop attraction

In the Danish town that is home to Lego HQ, Wow Park is a forest wonderland of swings, ziplines and treehouses immersed in nature

The birdsong is louder 14 metres up and there’s a citrusy tang of pine in the air. Scrambling to the top of a conifer with a six-year-old who suffers from vertigo wasn’t top of my post-lockdown bucket list, but after staring at the same four walls for weeks on end, there’s a welcome sense of perspective to spending time in a forest of 7,000 trees.

This is Wow Park in Billund, the Danish town that’s the home of Lego HQ, and that calls itself the “Capital of Children” – with ambitions to become the most child-friendly place in the world to live and work. Billund’s newest attraction is a treetop wonderland, the largest of its kind in the country, including suspension bridges, nets in the sky, giant bouncy balls, swings and ziplines; all crafted around the trunks of giant trees. It’s like Go Ape gone Viking, with a rough and ready, hand-whittled feel.

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Macron expected to ask UK to review 14-day quarantine rule

The French president visits No 10 for talks on Thursday during trip to commemorate WWII alliance

The French president Emmanuel Macron is expected to call on the UK to revisit its decision of imposing a 14-day quarantine period on visitors from abroad during his trip to the UK on Thursday.

Macron, on his first visit abroad since the coronavirus outbreak, is in London to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Gen Charles de Gaulle’s broadcast announcing an alliance with Winston Churchill, “the leader of the British empire”, and the launching of the French resistance.

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UK travellers unable to fly to Greece as country reopens

Ban on air travel between Britain and Greece to continue until June 30, unlike other countries

It was meant to be the moment when Greece “welcomed the world”. But in another about-turn, travellers on flights from the UK will not be accepted when the Mediterranean country reopens to tourism on Monday.

Bowing to new advice from the EU, Athens announced on Friday that the suspension of air links with Britain, in effect since March, will continue to be enforced until 30 June.

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No ‘patient zero’ as Covid-19 came into UK at least 1,300 times

Study prompts further criticism that chances to suppress infection early in outbreak were missed

There was no “patient zero” in the UK’s Covid-19 epidemic, according to research showing that the infection was introduced on at least 1,300 occasions.

The findings, from the Covid-19 Genomics UK consortium, have prompted further criticism that opportunities to suppress the spread of infection in February and March were missed.

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Which European countries are easing travel restrictions?

As some countries in Europe restart tourism, we round up lockdown-easing measures and restrictions country-by-country. Information will be updated as the situation changes

The UK Foreign Office (FCO) is currently advising against all but essential international travel for an indefinite period. However, countries across Europe have begun to ease lockdown measures and border restrictions, and to prepare for the return of domestic and international tourists.

At the UK border, all arrivals must self-isolate for 14 days from 8 June, or face a £1,000 fine. Arrivals must also provide contact and accommodation information, and the authorities have said they will carry out spot checks. Failure to supply an address may result in a £100 fine. They will also be strongly advised to download and use the NHS contact tracing app.

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‘We need the Brits’: Benidorm banks on August tourist surge

Spanish resort ‘like a ghost town’ as UK’s Covid-19 lockdown keeps its best customers away

There’ll be no craic at the Shamrock tonight, says Lisa Griffin, who has run the Irish pub in Benidorm for 25 years.

Griffin’s 15 staff, who include a four-piece band, are on furlough and no one knows what will happen when the Spanish government’s scheme comes to an end on 30 June.

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Health experts cast doubt on UK hopes for holiday ‘air bridges’

Agreements to exempt tourists from coronavirus quarantine restrictions are complicated

Public health experts and officials have warned that the idea of “air bridge” links between the UK and overseas holiday destinations may prove impossible this summer, amid continued concern over how they could operate safely.

A number of Conservative MPs are pushing for air bridges – mutual agreements with other countries to allow travellers to fly in and out without coronavirus quarantine restrictions – ahead of the imposition of the UK’s 14-day quarantine system next week.

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Critics round on No 10 over ‘ridiculous’ rules for 14-day quarantine

Exclusive: Opponents claim exemptions to rules could mean great economic pain for little public health benefit

Tens of thousands of new arrivals to the UK will be able to go food shopping, change accommodation and use public transport from airports during a 14-day quarantine imposed to prevent a second wave of coronavirus, under draft plans to be laid before parliament.

The Guardian understands that about a fifth of people are expected to receive a spot-check to ensure that they are staying at the address or addresses they have provided to the authorities, but enforcement of the quarantine will be limited.

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Priti Patel announces 14-day quarantine for travellers to UK – video

From 8 June people arriving in the UK will have to tell the authorities where they will be staying and face spot checks to ensure they self-isolate for 14 days, the home secretary, Priti Patel, has confirmed. Anyone failing to comply could face a fine of £1,000


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We lived the European dream. Will any politician stand up for open borders?

Millions of us built our lives on the promise of free movement. Under cover of coronavirus, that dream is disappearing

They said he was German, others Italian, but then again he might have been French. We may never know the true nationality of “patient zero” in Europe. And it doesn’t much matter, because the true patient zero in our continent is Europe itself.

From the first detection of the virus on European territory, Europe has been in a coma.

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From the end of the pier to the circus, UK seaside resorts in lockdown hope to salvage a summer

Norfolk’s picture postcard destinations were set for a bumper year – now they are fighting for survival

On a cloudless May morning, the seaside resort of Great Yarmouth on England’s east coast looks postcard perfect, but it’s deserted – the shops are shuttered and the beachside carparks closed. A scattering of lone joggers and cyclists make their way along the promenade, known as the “golden mile”, while one beach hut serves takeaway coffees and ice-creams.

While the UK has begun its first tentative steps towards easing lockdown restrictions, foreign leisure travel is still expected to be off the table for some time. Could a gradual reopening of the economy throw a lifeline to Britain’s struggling tourism industry, provided the virus is brought under control when the peak school summer holiday season begins?

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Cruise firm Carnival slashes jobs and pay in face of Covid-19 crisis

World’s largest cruise company declines to give details for extent of redundancies

Cruise ship company Carnival has announced a wide-ranging programme of job losses and pay cuts as it desperately seeks to cut costs in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

The world’s largest cruise company said it would save “hundreds of millions of dollars” over the course of a year after making the cuts but declined to give details of the extent of redundancies and furloughs.

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What is the future for travel and migration in age of Covid-19?

Lockdowns are starting to ease but travel and migration will be disrupted for longer

Our globalised world has been brought to a crashing halt by coronavirus.

By April, over 90% of the world’s population – 7.1 billion people – lived in countries with coronavirus-related travel restrictions on people arriving from abroad, a Pew study found.

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Barcelona without the tourists: ‘We’ve reclaimed our city but inherited a ghost town’

Last year Barcelona received 30 million visitors – now there are none. Emerging from Europe’s strictest coronavirus lockdown, how do its tourist-weary residents feel about getting their city back?

For six weeks, the streets of Barcelona were deserted. Not a soul except the Deliveroo and Glovo riders and the occasional shopper, masked and gloved, making a foray to the nearest supermarket before scurrying back home. In a city with one of the highest population densities in Europe, there was no one to be seen.

Throughout this time, people here have shown an extraordinary and perhaps unexpected degree of discipline, stoicism and collective spirit in sticking to the rules of one of Europe’s strictest lockdowns.

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World tourism faces worst crisis since records began, says UNWTO

Travel industry could see an 80% decline in international arrivals for 2020 amid crisis that threatens livelihood of up to 120 million people

International tourism faces its worst crisis since records began, with up to 1.1bn fewer people taking trips globally in 2020. The scale of the coronavirus pandemic’s impact is outlined in a report by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), which predicts a decline in international arrivals of between 58% and 80% this year.

This is due to widespread travel restrictions and the closure of airports and borders worldwide. The prediction of a 58% decline is based on the gradual reopening of international borders and easing of travel restrictions in early July; the 80% figure is based on early December.

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‘It’s a tough island to live on’: why coronavirus spells doom for Ibiza

Clubs on the White Isle are starting to cancel their events, a disaster for workers who survive on summer income. Pete Tong and others explain what happens next

Coronavirus and culture – a list of major cancellations

Ibiza welcomes more than three million visitors during the summer months, pumping billions into its economy. Close to 75% of the island’s 147,000-plus population get their income from tourism, directly and indirectly – besides the fabled nightclub scene, there’s the hotels, Airbnbs, restaurants, bars, shops, taxis, and other businesses that exist because of the pull of the clubs. But a huge question mark hangs over them all, with the clubs beginning to cancel their summer seasons due to coronavirus.

So far Hï Ibiza, Ushuaïa, Amnesia and Eden have all cancelled their May calendar. Pacha hosted a virtual house party with a promise to “#seeyousoon”; their latest social media post stating, “After this moment’s respite, Pacha and Ibiza will look even more beautiful.” DC-10 have cancelled their opening party and said they are currently unable to confirm any future dates at the club. Privilege have yet to comment.

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