Quote:
Originally Posted by Rapax
Because everybody is speculating about getting back to normal or to prepandemic life I think a stronger future divide between business travels, commercial tourism and individual travelers is imaginable.
Varying levels of restrictions like a limitation of Visas or of destinations allowed to visit could make self organized traveling more hard and of course more expensive.
|
This is a valid analysis. As travellers, we need to understand that countries will open up in the order of what's important to them. This means business first, for many developing economies welcoming foreign business people is paramount to growth. Video conferencing does not solve everything, especially when people want to invest money.
Next, the countries with a sizeable tourism sector will open up some touristy areas. This is a sensible approach, it limits the exposure of the society to travellers, while starting up the most important part of the travel economy. I would not be surprised if only package tours were allowed, this would make vaccine passports and insurance easier to handle. Oh, and some kind of confirmation of vaccination will be needed, most of us are good enough people to understand that countries that cannot afford quick vaccination or handle an outbreak are not ours to endanger.
But what about those of us who like to roam free, uninvited and unorganised? Border controls will open up after a time, quarantine requirements will be dropped when vaccine passports start working, etc. But insurance requirements will increase, tests will need to be done (and paid for), etc.
The biggest question on my mind is how outsiders will be welcomed by regular people. Will we be seen as potentially dangerous? In any case, a face mask is something that we should keep handy at all times over the next years to diffuse situations were we're seen as contagious threats. And we should accept this, we will always be the uninvited guests who have to be nice to be accepted into the conversation.
|