Skift Take
Nearly a year since Covid's start, the lack of a united front among travel and tourism's leading organizations and groups continues — this time, with confounding, divergent opinions on vaccine mandates. This fragmented approach is sure to stunt the industry's pace of recovery.
After 10 months of Covid lows that led to over 170 million jobs lost in tourism yet culminated at last in two vaccine announcements, it seemed as if the travel industry’s major travel organizations would finally unite on a standardized approach to travel protocols, while the world awaits global vaccine access and distribution.
Instead, the new year is already fraught with their unilateral statements on vaccine requirements to travel, as well as ongoing diverging opinions on testing protocols, quarantines and country bans. This deep lack of a unified policy is staggering — and stifling the restart of travel unnecessarily.
As AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes said at the start of 2021, "[t]he coordination on Covid is horrific.”
A Fragmented Industry
The dissonance across the travel industry was clear early on when the World Health Organization advised that shutting borders to travelers was not an effective measure in controlling the pandemic’s spread and encouraged screening instead, yet countries sealed entry to all for as long or as short a period as their governments saw fit.
Then, in light of prolonged silence and lack of guidance from international groups on protocols through nearly the end of May, tourism-dependent destinations desperate to reopen for the summer season began to independently shape and implement their own entry testing and quarantine rules. A maze of point to point protocols emerged.
Further confusing matters, two of the travel industry’s leading international groups, the United Nations World Tourism Organization and the World Tourism and Travel Council, ea
