Vaccine Passports are going to become a reality soon and they are certainly going to help in resurrection of COVID-battered travel and hospitality sector. Passport, or a documentation of COVID vaccination will prove you as safe from either contracting an infection or infecting others. Such travellers will face lesser restrictions and quarantine free travel. Thus, ailing tourism industry can start welcoming tourists again. Many countries and organisations have already bee working in this direction.
Thailand has said that it nears vaccine passport and can now hope to welcome tourists in third quarter. European Union is mulling vaccination passports as well, with possibility or EU countries reaching an agreement on Thursday. Global airline industry body IATA has been already working on its own Travel Pass and now it has announced its launch timeline.
Thai authorities are preparing a plan to ease restrictions for travellers vaccinated against the coronavirus, senior officials said on Wednesday. Measures for vaccinated visitors would be introduced step-by-step and could include shortening the mandatory quarantine for all arrivals from two weeks to three days for those vaccinated, or waiving it entirely, Tourism Authority of Thailand Governor (TAT) Yuthasak Supasorn said.
“We have to be fast because we want to start welcoming tourists in the third quarter,” he said. The TAT plans to begin selling tour packages after April.
The tourism ministry has also requested 100,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine for tourism workers in Chon Buri, Krabi, Phang Nga, Chiang Mai and Phuket. Thailand on Wednesday received its first 200,000 doses coronavirus vaccines.
The five provinces will from next month host “hotel area quarantine” programmes offering 5,000 to 6,000 rooms, where visitors can move around within hotel grounds instead of being confined to their rooms, according to tourism minister, Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn.
The global vaccine rollout has given hope to the pandemic-hit industry, which makes up about 11% of Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy. Since October it has allowed a limited number of tourists to return on long visas, including a group from South Korea for a new “golf quarantine” programme.
“This year, we expect about five million visitors, but next year it should jump because the vaccine will have helped, maybe 15 million,” Phiphat said. Arrivals could reach 30 million in 2023 and return to pre-pandemic levels the year after, he said.
Many voices within EU
Meanwhile, European Union is possibly going to work on certificates of vaccination for EU citizens who have had an anti-COVID shot.
Southern EU countries that depend heavily on tourism are desperate to rescue this summer’s holiday season. Lockdowns to slow the pandemic caused the deepest ever economic recession in the 27-nation bloc last year.
With the rollout of vaccines against COVID-19 now gathering pace, some governments, like those of Greece and Spain, are pushing for a quick adoption of an EU-wide certificate for those already inoculated so that people can travel again.
However, other countries, such as France and Germany, appear more reluctant, as officials there say it could create de facto vaccination obligation and would be discriminatory to those who cannot or will not take a jab.
France, where anti-vaccine sentiment is particularly strong and where the government has pledged not to make them compulsory, considers the idea of vaccine passports as “premature”, a French official said on Wednesday.
Work is needed on the details, including whether it should be in digital form, be accepted globally and at what stage of the two-step inoculation process it should be issued.
Officials said the EU was working with the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which is keen to revive air travel, and with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Health Organization.
But travel with certificates also raised legal questions, officials said, because those last in line for vaccinations could argue their freedom of movement was unjustly restricted by the often months-long queues.
EU officials also point out there is no guidance yet from the WHO and EU agencies whether people who have received two shots of the COVID-19 vaccine can still carry the coronavirus and infect others, even if no longer vulnerable themselves. It was also not clear if people could be infectious having already fought off the coronavirus themselves, for how long they remained immune and if they too should get certificates.
“There are still many things we don’t know,” a senior official from one of the EU countries said. “We need more time to come to a common line.”
IATA Travel Pass by March end
IATA has for long expressed concerns that the ongoing global restrictions around COVID-19 are hitting airlines hard, with its chief economist warning it will likely take longer than planned for companies to be able to stop burning cash and begin rebounding financially.
Long advocated and IATA designed COVID-19 Travel Pass will give travelers a way to display test results and confirmation they’ve received a vaccine.
IATA has said that its COVID-19 travel application will be launched by March. Its travel app will give airline passengers a way to present COVID-19 test results and confirmation that they have received a coronavirus vaccine jab.
The app, dubbed the IATA Travel Pass, is designed to provide government, airlines and air passengers with a streamlined process to ensure there is “accurate information, secure identification and verified data” available to meet all relevant coronavirus restrictions.
The IATA has outlined a timeline for the full rollout of its travel pass, with initial efforts underway at Singapore Airlines while a further 20 airlines are testing the app. More companies are set to start using it in the next few months, the organization said, and it aims to have the full pass ready to go live at the end of March.
Some companies have expressed concern that the summer booking period, a popular time for the airline industry, still “remains weak,” with reservations currently only at seven percent of pre-pandemic levels. The IATA, which represents some 290 members, has urged governments to provide further financial support to prevent the crisis in the travel industry from getting worse.