international travel – Page 3 – आवारा मुसाफिर

As COVID fears ebb, Japan readies for tourists from abroad

June 28, 2022228 Views

The rickshaw men in Tokyo are adding English-speaking staff, a sure sign Japan is bracing for a return of tourists from abroad. Japan’s border controls to curb the spread of coronavirus infections began gradually loosening earlier this month. That’s great news for Yusuke Otomo, owner of Daikichi, a kimono rental shop in Asakusa, an old district of Tokyo famous for its temples, quaint restaurants and rickshaw rides. He can barely contain his excitement. A rickshaw puller carries his customers around Tokyo's Asakusa area famous for sightseeing, Wednesday, June 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae) “Those were a hard three years. But we managed to endure until today. And after such an experience, to think people from abroad can finally come back is simply thrilling,” Otomo told The Ass...

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Boost to travel confidence

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

June 24, 2022891 Views

More than half of global tourists are now unconcerned about COVID-19, finds GlobalData More than two years on, widespread COVID-19 concern appears to be declining as international travel resumes, amid easing travel restrictions and rising vaccination rates. According to a live poll conducted by GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, 57% of respondents are “not concerned” or are “not very concerned” about the spread of COVID-19, suggesting that tourists are more prepared to live with COVID-19. Hannah Free, Travel and Tourism Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “The outlook for tourism in many countries is brighter than at any time in the past two years. However, the turbulence and uncertainty of COVID-19 has created several challenges which are likely to further complicate re...

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Japan cautious of ‘bad manners’ of foreign tourists

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

May 30, 2022792 Views

Japan's easing of a two-year ban on foreign tourists seeks to balance the enormous economic importance of tourism with concerns that travellers would trigger a COVID outbreak, insiders say. Under the decision, Japan will allow in a limited number of foreign tourists on package tours starting June 10. Last week a few "test tours", mainly of overseas travel agents, started to arrive. Relaxing some of the world's strictest pandemic border measures required months of pressure from travel and tourism executives, three insiders told Reuters, describing both the government's fears of public backlash if infections spiked and the industry's concerns of an economic wipeout. FILE - Tourists in traditional Japanese kimonos walk in Asakusa district in Tokyo, July 27, 2020 (AP Photo/Eugene Hos...

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International travel set to maintain growth in 2022

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

May 13, 2022908 Views

Full recovery expected by 2025, observes GlobalData International departures will reach 68% of the pre-COVID-19 levels globally in 2022 and are expected to improve to 82% in 2023 and 97% in 2024, before making a full recovery by 2025 at 101% of 2019 levels, with a projected 1.5 billion international departures. However, the trajectory for the recovery in international departures is not linear across regions or countries, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company. Hannah Free, Travel and Tourism Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “International travel from North America had shown improvement in 2021 as international departures grew by 15% year-on-year. The US rose to become the world’s largest outbound travel market in 2021. In 2022, outbound departures from North America a...

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New Zealand to fully open international borders from end-July

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

May 11, 20221166 Views

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Wednesday the country will fully reopen its international borders from 11:59 p.m. on July 31, with cruise ships also welcome back to local ports on the same day. The end-July opening of the border is two months earlier than the government's previous time frame and will mean visitors who need visas will now be able to come to New Zealand. Ardern said in a speech to a Business NZ lunch in Auckland that opening the borders would help to relieve urgent skills shortages, open up tourism and put immigration settings on a more secure footing. "We are building on our proven plan to secure New Zealand's economic future," Ardern said. (Reuters) ...

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Tourists return to Paris but Asians, Americans stay away

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

May 11, 2022756 Views

On a sunny afternoon this week, Eli Mwenda happily snapped pictures of his sister Rebekah Mithinji by the Eiffel Tower, two of many tourists enjoying a long overdue break in Paris after freezing holiday plans due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Paris trip for the siblings was a graduation gift for Mithinji, initially planned for 2020. Two years later they finally made it, with Mithinji travelling from Britain and Mwenda all the way from Kenya. Tourists walk near the glass Pyramid of the Louvre museum on a sunny day in Paris, France, May 11, 2022. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes "I'm so glad we made it, it's been such a long time coming," said Mithinji, all smiles under her sunglasses. "It's refreshing, feels like we're sort of going back to normal," added Mwenda. "Walking around the str...

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Saudi Arabia aims for 70 million tourism visits this year

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

May 9, 2022390 Views

Saudi Arabia aims to exceed 70 million tourist visits this year after drawing 62 million last year, a tourism official said on Monday, underlining the conservative kingdom concerted push to boost its travel industry. Saudi Arabia is a major religious destination with millions visiting Islam's two holy cities of Mecca and Medina annually to perform the hajj and umrah pilgrimages. The kingdom has in recent years started to promote leisure travel as part of a strategy aimed at diversifying the economy away from oil, spearheaded by de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. FILE PHOTO: Guests swim on a cruise ship during a leasure trip to the Red Sea, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, September 20, 2021. REUTERS/Mohammed Benmansour Visits were up 130% in the first quarter of 2022 com...

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Pre-arrival negative COVID test now not needed for entry into Fiji

UPENDRA SWAMI

May 2, 2022498 Views

Fiji has made two very significant changes in entry requirements for travellers. Fully vaccinated travellers to Fiji will no longer be required to produce a pre-arrival negative Covid-19 test to enter Fiji. This move reduces costs and lends greater convenience to those travelling to Fiji. These changes have been made effective from Sunday, 1 May 2022. Besides, the vaccination requirement for entry into Fiji has also been widened. All travellers 16 years and above must now display proof of full COVID-19 vaccination prior to entering the country. A 14-day waiting period prior to travel following full vaccination applies. Fiji COVID-19 recognised vaccines include AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson and Johnson (Janssen), Nuvaxovid (Novavax), Coronavac (Sinovac), Covishield, BBIBP-CorV (...

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New Zealand opens its borders to 60 more countries

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

May 2, 20221267 Views

But Indian tourists will still have to wait till October to get in New Zealand welcomed thousands of travellers from around the globe on Monday as the country opened its borders to visitors from around 60 nations including the United States, Britain and Singapore for the first time since COVID-19 hit in early 2020. Maori cultural performers sang songs at the arrivals gate in Auckland and travellers were handed popular locally made chocolate bars as the first flights came in from Los Angeles and San Francisco. Friends and family hugged and cried as people were reunited for what was for some the first time in more than two years. Garth Halliday, who was waiting at the airport for his son, daughter-in-law and grandson to land from London, told local media it made him happy an...

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Thailand’s tourism recovery lags on COVID rule changes

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

April 29, 2022874 Views

When 23-year-old Norwegian Anastasia Johansen and her boyfriend were planning their first vacation in two years, they considered going to Thailand but chose nearby Vietnam instead, for its simpler entry rules on the coronavirus. “The regulations to enter Thailand ... were complicated to me and we had to pay for the hefty PCR test,” Johansen said. Thailand, one of the world’s tourism destinations before the pandemic, was among the first nations in Asia to reopen its borders to vaccinated visitors last year with limited quarantine norms, hailed at the time as a model for re-opening. FILE PHOTO: A tourist poses at Maya Bay as Thailand reopens its world-famous beach after closing it for more than three years to allow its ecosystem to recover from the impact of overtourism, at Krabi p...