China’s strict “zero-Covid” policy imposed considerable constraints on international travelers as well as residents, with city-wide lockdowns and extended quarantines for infected citizens. Incoming passengers often faced weeks-long isolation in government-approved hotels, with residents sometimes confined to their homes in efforts to contain the virus. These measures occasionally led to protests, increased unemployment, and disruptions in major cities.

The decision to eliminate the testing requirement aligns with China’s gradual easing of Covid-19 restrictions and quarantine measures for international travelers. Until now, inbound travelers have been mandated to provide a negative Covid-19 test, either nucleic acid or antigen, before boarding their flights. However, the new policy abolishes this requirement, paving the way for a smoother entry process.

China’s latest policy adjustment underscores the nation’s growing confidence in managing the pandemic while emphasizing its commitment to revive its economy and international travel. It follows earlier moves, including the elimination of quarantine mandates for Chinese citizens returning from abroad in January and the expansion of the list of countries Chinese nationals can visit. This expansion coincides with increased international flight options, such as the first post-Covid era flight from Wuhan to Europe.

L’article China scraps Covid test requirement for inbound international passengers est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

More than one million people died from Covid-19 in the United States. The White House has however indicated that the pandemic has virtually stopped, prompting the government to lift restrictions that were in place as the disease ravaged entire communities and forced economic paralysis. The need to test negative was dropped last June but the vaccination requirement had remained in place.

“Today, we are announcing that the administration will end the Covid-19 vaccine requirements for federal employees, federal contractors, and international air travelers at the end of the day on May 11, the same day that the Covid-19 public health emergency ends,” a statement from the White House read.

We are in a different phase of our response to Covid-19 than we were when many of these requirements were put into place.

White House statement

According to data from the White House, Covid-19 deaths have declined by 95% since January 2021, and hospitalizations are down nearly 91%. Covid-19 deaths around the world are at their lowest levels since the start of the pandemic. Following a whole-of-government effort that led to a record number of nearly 270 million Americans receiving at least one shot vaccine.

The statement asserted that the vaccination requirements “helped ensure the safety of workers in critical workforces including those in the healthcare and education sectors, protecting themselves and the populations they serve, and strengthening their ability to provide services without disruptions to operations”.

According to the UK news outlet The Independent, a spokesperson for Virgin Atlantic said that “the relaxation of the vaccination requirement for foreign nationals removes barriers for frictionless travel to the USA, our heartland for nearly 40 years. It will give a boost to transatlantic customer demand as a busy summer approaches.”

The Whites House stated that while vaccination remains one of the most important tools in advancing the health and safety of employees and promoting the efficiency of workplaces, the situation has changed. Authorities are now in a different phase and the measures are no longer necessary.

The health emergency was decreed in March 2020 by Donald Trump. Later, Joe Biden adopted many of the mandates throughout 2021 as a way to accelerate the percentage of immunized people in the country.

L’article US to end Covid-19 vaccine air travel requirements on May 11 est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

Airlines will no longer be obliged to request test results to allow passengers to board the plane, according to official media. All China-bound travelers are required to declare negative test result to China Customs by filling in the Health Declaration Form on the WeChat mini-program of China Customs.

Travelers need to finish customs procedures with their health declaration code, and China Customs will conduct sampling inspection of all declarations. Inbound travelers with no issues to report in their health declaration and have been given regular customs inspection can enter China without being subject to quarantine. Those with issues to report in their health declaration or symptoms such as fever shall receive tests at the customs. Those who test positive may self-quarantine at home or place of residence or seek medical attention by following relevant instructions. 

After entry into China, passengers will have to strictly abide by the epidemic prevention and control requirements of the place where they stay. All China-bound travelers should strictly abide by the epidemic prevention requirements of the airlines throughout the flight and take good personal protection to reduce the risk of infection.

China has maintained strict control measures against Covid-19, which it did not begin to relax until the end of 2022, after a number of protests in the country. From March 15th, visas began to be issued to foreigners again, a major relaxation of travel restrictions in place since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The country welcomed 65.7 million international visitors in 2019, according to data from the UN World Tourism Organization, before the pandemic led the country to close itself off from the rest of the world. While most other countries began fully reopening their economies and welcoming international travelers earlier, China only began to exit its strict policies in late 2022.

After the lifting of travel restrictions, China’s aviation industry has been facing a cabin crew shortage as airlines struggle to cope with increased travel demand. According to data from the Civil Aviation Administration (CAAC), the total number of flight attendants in China fell by around 11,000, or an 11% drop from the pre-pandemic level of 108,955 in 2019. According to Reuters, companies such as Xiamen Airlines, China Southern Airlines and Spring Airlines are actively hiring. Hainan Airlines which plans to hire more than 1,000 flight attendants this year, has already received more than 20,000 applications, the airline told Reuters.

“If the market recovers well, the number of international flights (to and from China) by the end of the year is expected to reach about 80% of the pre-pandemic Covid-19 level, with about 7,300 flights per week,” CAAC Director Liang Nan said. “Chinese and foreign airlines are optimistic about international flights.”

An official of the National Health Commission, He Qinghua, announced last week that the number of Covid-19 cases in early April had dropped to the lowest level since December, as reported by Travel Weekly. The figures have increased slightly since mid-April, but He Qinghua asserted that a substantial increase in contagion cases in the short term is unlikely.

L’article China lifts PCR requirement for all international arrivals est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

The pandemic may have shown many companies that, at least in certain situations, travel was not as essential as it seemed to once have been. Forbes magazine reports that according to Morning Consult data, the percentage of frequent business travelers who won’t travel as much as they used to has gone up from 39% in October 2021 to 42% in February 2022.

In November 2020, Bill Gates predicted that more than 50% of business travel and more than 30% of days worked in offices would go away permanently. “Now that it’s not the gold standard to say, ‘Yes, you flew all the way over to sit in front of me,’ and that you can do the virtual connection, it will be a very high threshold for actually doing that business trip.”

The last two years people have shown they can work pretty well without traveling a lot.

Matthew Parsons, business travel Skift

Companies like Zoom, internet service providers and utilities companies might be benefiting from the shift in work habits at the cost of the travel industry. According to the US Travel Association, corporate travel pushed in 2019 close to $335 billion dollars in spending into the American economy, while supporting 2.5 million jobs. A drop in 50% corporate travel would represent a loss of roughly $167 billion dollars to the travel industry.

Many companies have noticed that they can reign in their travel expenses while maintaining a good relationship with customers and suppliers. A mix of travel and online meetings seems to be becoming a preferred choice for many. Travel requests are being scrutinized more closely than in the past. “The last two years, people have shown that they can work pretty well without traveling a lot,” Matthew Parsons, who covers business travel and writes for Skift told Forbes. “So the finance department’s going to be really watching company time on travel in the future.”

A potential side effect of traveling, especially after the pandemic, is the risk of being stranded at an airport due to delays or cancellations. Several European airlines and airports have faced not only staff shortages but also disruptions caused by strikes over salary increases and other benefits. This month, EasyJet’s CEO Johan Lundgren complained about the recent air traffic controller (ATC) strikes in France, saying the consequences are “completely unacceptable”.

In an interview with Agence France Press, he stressed that authorities better address the underlying issues before tourists start to choose other locations. “The strikes will have a dampening effect on demand,” he noted, adding that he had written to the French transport minister and aviation regulator to request an increase in the “minimum service level” guaranteed during the strikes.

There have been major flight disruptions amid strikes over France’s controversial pension reforms, which will see the minimum retirement age rise from 62 to 64. There have been cancellations and delays at French airports, but the air traffic controllers’ strikes mean that other flights crossing French airspace have also been affected. “We do not contest the right of people to strike,” Lundgren said. “But the consequences must be proportionate and flights over French territory must be protected.”

Not all is lost for the travel and hospitality industry as some players seem to be adapting to new lifestyle habits where individuals mix pleasure trips with teleworking or home office. One such company is Airbnb, whose profits remain healthy. “As lockdowns lifted, many people found themselves still able to work from home but not tethered to an office or even a specific location,” Catherine Powell, Airbnb’s global head of hosting told Forbes. “They searched for different homes, ones where they could take their families, their pets, and where they could continue working remotely. And they stayed for weeks at a time. We believe these longer stays and flexible living are here to stay.”

Aware that customers have changed the motivation behind their tip and lodging needs, the company has created a way to test the WiFi speed called Verified WiFi, as well as other tools that allow hosts to update their spaces in such a way that their needs can be met.

L’article Has the pandemic disrupted corporate travel forever? est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

Three years later, optimism seems to have finally returned to the industry. “Tourism always comes back,” UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololiksahvili said at the inauguration ceremony of ITB Berlin 2023, as the world’s leading tourism trade fair celebrates its first in-person event since 2019.

Global tourism bounced back strongly in 2022, as international tourist arrivals more than doubled compared to the previous two years. The recent reopening of China further fueled optimism in the tourism sector as Asia lagged behind other regions in the recovery from the Covid-19 shock.

Tourism always comes back.

Zurab Pololiksahvili, UNWTO Secretary-General

According to UNWTO estimates, international tourist arrivals could reach 80 to 95 percent of pre-pandemic levels this year, depending on how quickly travel bounces back across Asia. Last year, international tourist arrivals in Asia and the Pacific trailed pre-pandemic levels by more than 75 percent, while Europe and the Middle East came within 20 percent of 2019 numbers.

Before the pandemic, the global tourism sector had seen almost uninterrupted growth for decades. According to the WEF, the number of international arrivals went from 277 million in 1980 to nearly 1.5 billion in 2019. The two largest crises of the past decades, the SARS epidemic of 2003 and the global financial crisis of 2009, were minor disruptions compared to pandemic of 2020.

his week’s event was the first in-person ITB for four years and comes as the sector’s recovery is well underway. According to UNWTO, international tourism could reach 80 to 95% of pre-pandemic numbers by the end of the year, with 70 million international arrivals recorded in January alone (more than double the number of January 2022).

The return of ITB Berlin from the 7th to the 10th of March was heralded by UNWTO as proof of strong confidence in travel as “the ultimate barometer of trust”. UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili was invited to open the event, alongside Germany’s Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, Berlin Mayor Franziska Giffey, and public and private sector leaders.

UNWTO reinforced the importance of education, training and investments for tourism’s ability to deliver on its potential. It announced a new partnership that will see the Organization work with Saudi Arabia to promote education and professional development in tourism. UNWTO also signed a new agreement with the Business School of Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts to partner towards the creation of a new Bachelor of Science degree in International Sustainable Tourism.

The key message of investing in people was also stressed as UNWTO took part in a special Industry Roundtable. The event built on UNWTO’s status as the bridge between the public and private sectors. Recognizing the vital need for more and better-targeted investments to put transformative plans into action, UNWTO also confirmed that World Tourism Day 2023 will be celebrated around the theme of “Tourism and Green Investments”.

Against the backdrop of ITB Berlin, UNWTO released a new report highlighting the progress that global tourism has made in measuring greenhouse gas emissions. “Climate Action in the Tourism Sector” was developed by UNWTO with support from the German Government and in collaboration with UN Climate Change (UNFCCC). The recommendations will help ensure more reliable measurements of GHG emissions towards fulfilling the commitments of the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism.

L’article How international travel began to recover in 2022 est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

The decision is effective for flights departing to the United States from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macau, and designated airports beginning on March 10th at 15:00 US Eastern Time, announced the CDC.

The designated airports include Incheon International Airport in Seoul, Republic of Korea; Toronto Pearson International Airport in Canada; and Vancouver International Airport in Canada, the CDC added. In practice the change means that passengers traveling from China are no longer required have to show a negative Covid-19 test or recovery certificate before boarding US-bound aircraft.

According to Reuters, the CDC was aware that “there was a large wave of infections in [China] and there was a lack of transparency by the PRC, meaning we had little information about the size of the surge or the variants that were circulating within”.

The Genomic Sequencing Program, which asks travelers to volunteer in order to detect the development of new variants at an early stage at selected airports, will go on as before. The program will continue to monitor flights from China and regional transportation hubs. The same applies to flights from more than 30 other countries.

In January of 2023, the US began requiring air passengers ages 2 years and older to get a negative Covid test result no more than two days before departure from China, Hong Kong or Macao. On Wednesday March 8th, the CDC stated that “the public health measure was put in place to protect US citizens and communities as we worked to both identify the size of the (China Covid) surge and gain better insights into the variants that were circulating,” as reported by Reuters.

L’article US drops Covid-19 testing for passengers arriving from China est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

1. Scraping masks

As of March 1, masks are no longer mandatory in Hong Kong, the region’s Special Administrative chief executive John Lee confirmed: “I have always told people that I will be monitoring the situation of Hong Kong in regard to the total number of infected cases, the overall trend and the different data that indicate the situation of Covid in Hong Kong.”

After looking at all the data, the trend and the fact that the winter surge is nearing the end, in order to give people a very clear message that Hong Kong is resuming to normalcy, I think this is the right time to make the decision.

John Lee, Hong Kong Special Administrative Chief Executive

Hong Kong’s mandate, enforced through fines that could reach more than $1,000, had required facial coverings in all public spaces. The rule came into effect for public transport on July 15, 2020 and was expanded two weeks later to include indoor and outdoor areas. However, by that time most people in the city had begun wearing masks months earlier as reports of Covid-19 infections spread, leading to panic buying and shortages as early as January 2020.

The Hong Kong administration believes that after continuous assessments of several factors, it’s safe now to bring the region back to normality. According to Lee, the Hong Kong government has been monitoring when to lift the mask requirement for almost two months.

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Its neighbor Macao also scrapped mandatory masks on February 27, following a continuous stable epidemic in the Asian region.

2. Reviving the economy

With the masking requirement removed, Hong Kong is slowly resuming to its routine comprehensively, namely with regards to reviving its economy, which has long been known as a financial hub.  Lee added that with the end of the mask mandate, “it will be very beneficial to economic development, our international competitiveness as well as our activities which involve everyone in Hong Kong.”

L’article Hong Kong scraps Covid-19 masks to revive the region’s financial hub est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

For other indoor places and means of transportation, the competent entity shall evaluate and decide whether to require entry into the place or means of transportation based on factors such as the current epidemic situation, the air circulation in the place or means of transportation, the number and density of people, the nature and duration of activities, etc. People who take the transportation should wear masks; if masks are required, they should be announced or notified in an appropriate way.

Under certain circumstances, such as large-scale gatherings, cluster infections in nurseries and non-higher education institutions, the organizer or competent entity should require personnel entering the relevant places to wear masks; masks should also be worn when flu-like symptoms such as fever, myalgia, sore throat, cough or runny nose occur; as for infants and young children under 3 years old, they do not need to wear masks when entering any place.

The epidemic situation in Macao has continuously remained stable over the last two months.

Macao’s Government

Meanwhile, Hong Kong extended its mask requirement until March 8th, as reported by Reuters. Hong Kong is one of the last places globally that still imposes a mask mandate though authorities have noted this might change in the short term.

On January 8th, China finally abandoned its zero-Covid policy, opening its borders to international travel after almost three years. While some requirements still apply for the rest of the world, as of today, travel between the mainland and the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao is due to fully resume.

Travelers are no longer required to present a negative test taken within 48 hours before their trip, as long as they did not travel abroad in the 7 previous days. Moreover, daily quotas are being scrapped. Until today, people who wished to travel from the two regions to the mainland had to register on an online platform, that capped the number of daily visitors to China. Group tours are also allowed to resume.

Customs checkpoints between China and the two territories are being reopened. “In order to ensure the safety, order and smoothness of customs clearance and cross-border passenger transport and to further improve the experience of personnel exchanges, the port inspection department and cross-border passenger transport operators have strengthened organization, coordination and dynamic scheduling, so that the ports adjacent to Hong Kong and Macao in the mainland should be opened as much as possible”, read a joint statement from the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Offices.

Authorities in Macao and Hong Kong have been working to deepen their tourism cooperation. In early February, the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) invited over 100 Hong Kong tourism industry leaders to visit Macao for a two-day familiarization program. The delegation consisted of government officials, tourism sector representatives, and members of the media. During their visit, the delegates participated in a work meeting, a Macao & Hengqin destination presentation, and a Hong Kong & Macao travel trade networking seminar.

MGTO Director Helena de Senna Fernandes stated that with easing of Macao’s pandemic border measures, the sea and land transportation services between Hong Kong and Macao are steadily resuming operation. Visitor arrivals from Hong Kong have been considerably rising in recent days. MGTO has vigorously geared up for promotional initiatives tailored for Hong Kong as a visitor source market, including the latest special offer on transportation, and arrangement for KOLs to visit and spotlight Macao on social media.

Fernandes indicated that the travel trade networking seminar briefed Hong Kong’s travel trade on Macao’s latest tourism resources. Macao and Hong Kong travel agencies were encouraged to forge partnerships, launch new travel products and special offers. All of these will boost mutual visitations, open up new possibilities for business cooperation and bolster the tourism industry towards recovery in Hong Kong and Macao.

L’article Macao lifts mask requirement for most locations est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

The Airline Association of Japan, which includes All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines among its 19 members, stated that the choice to wear masks on board of airplanes and at airports would be left up to individuals. 

The Japanese government had previously required the wearing of masks, particularly in enclosed spaces like airplanes. However, as of March 13, the mandate for wearing masks on public transport and in schools will shift to a recommendation, particularly during periods of congestion and overcrowding.

We will continue our efforts to ensure that our customers can use our aircraft with peace of mind.

Shinichi Inoue, president of All Nippon Airways

Japan’s Scheduled Airlines Association currently requires all passengers except infants to wear masks and limit conversation as much as possible while on board. On Japan Airlines’ website, it is stated that passengers should “refrain from unncecessary conversation” and are required to wear masks at all times during airport check-in, security screenings, and in airport lounges, as well as on board all aircraft.

According to Kyodo News, the government will downgrade the legal classification of COVID-19 to the same level as common infectious illnesses like the seasonal flu on 8 May.

Although there were multiple instances of conflicts over mask mandates on flights worldwide since 2020, it could be said that Japan experienced relatively fewer issues with enforcing such requirements and urging individuals to wear face masks in public places and on board airplanes. This is partly because wearing masks in public had already become a societal norm in the country.

As of now, Japan is one of the few significant jurisdictions yet to eliminate mandatory mask requirements on aircraft. In the beginning of 2022, the United States removed the federal mask mandate for passengers on board flights. India lifted the requirement in November 2022.

L’article Japanese airlines to scrap mask requirement from 13 March est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

In light of the recent epidemiological developments and taking into account the opinion of the Health Security Committee, Member States agreed to firstly phase out the requirement for a negative pre-departure Covid-19 test for travellers from China to Member States by the end of February, then to phase out random testing of travellers arriving from China to Member States by the middle of March.

I welcome the agreement reached by EU countries to phase out Covid-19 restrictions on travellers from China. The sooner the restrictions are lifted, the better for people-to-people exchanges between China and the EU.

HE Fu Cong, Ambassador of China to the European Union, told Travel Tomorrow

“This is an important step forward for EU economies”, the World Travel and Tourism Council welcomed the news. “It will be a major boost to businesses across the Travel and Tourism sector in the region, as well as for families and friends reconnecting and society generally returning to post-Covid normality. In 2019, before the pandemic, nearly 10 million Chinese tourists visited the EU with inbound revenue worth US $12.2 billion, creating jobs and boosting regional economies. The return of Chinese travellers to the EU is very welcome.”

IPCR reiterated the value of a coordinated precautionary approach and emphasised it will continue to monitor the situation in relation to Covid-19 developments, a statement from the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the European Union informed.

Background

On 8 January, China officially abandoned its zero-Covid policy, scrapping the strict quarantine requirements for people entering the country, opening its borders and starting to re-issue passports for its citizens after having stopped the procedures in March 2020. Faced with an upcoming influx of people travelling from China and fearing the country was not transparently reporting the evolution of the epidemic, the European Union, along with other states around the world, started asking for negative pre-departure tests from tourists coming from China.

Opinions about this decision were split, with the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC) calling it unjustified. The centre emphasised at the time that testing wastewater from airplanes was sufficient for detecting possible new variants of the virus, which would be the only concern, since immunity levels in Europe were high.

In the meantime, genome sequencing tests conducted on samples collected from planes arriving from China to Belgium did not find any previously unknown variants. Additionally, from a total of 2,130 passengers arriving in Belgium from China, only one failed to provide a negative PCR test taken before departure. The person in question took the test on arrival, having a negative result and being allowed to continue their journey.

L’article EU Members agree to scrap testing requirement for travellers from China est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.