China News Service, May 18th. According to the European Times, the steady progress of vaccination, the slowing of the epidemic situation and the upcoming traditional summer holiday have greatly stimulated European people's desire to travel.

Many European countries have also taken the opportunity to relax border controls. While preventing and controlling the epidemic, "open doors for business" welcome tourists.

Although cross-border travel has been relaxed, it seems that there is still a long way to go before "freedom of travel"...

Holiday is approaching, Europe scrambles to open cross-border travel

　　Facing the upcoming Pentecost and summer holidays, in May, many European countries further eased border controls and opened up cross-border travel, trying to take the opportunity to revive the tourism industry.

　　European countries that rely heavily on tourism, such as Italy, Spain, Greece, and Portugal, are pioneers in opening up cross-border tourism.

According to the Greek “China-Greece Times” report, on May 14, the Greek Civil Aviation Authority issued an announcement stating that Greece will be open to the European Union, the Schengen Agreement countries and 21 countries including China from that day.

At the same time, Greek domestic flight operations also resumed simultaneously.

　　In addition, on May 16, Italy officially opened its borders to tourists from some countries.

The Portuguese and British governments have also previously reached an agreement to allow British travelers to enter Portugal for non-essential travel from May 17.

Since the United Kingdom included Portugal in the "Green List of Safe Travel", the number of bookings for summer vacation in Portugal has increased significantly.

　　In addition to these few European resorts, other European countries are not to be outdone.

France launched its tourism recovery plan on May 11.

France’s Secretary of State for Tourism, Le Moni, stated that France will resume travel this summer and hopes to regain its lead in the number of tourists received by Spain, Switzerland and Italy.

In addition, the French government will also spend 28 billion euros to help the country's tourism industry recover.

　　Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands have also joined the open cross-border parade.

Germany has previously lifted travel warnings for parts of Spain. According to the plan, Austria and Bavaria will lift the tourism ban from May 19 and 21, respectively.

From May 19, Austria will also allow tourists to enter freely.

The Netherlands has successively relaxed its travel and epidemic prevention obligations to Portugal, Spain, Greece, Malaysia and other countries. It is expected that more and more countries and regions will be able to achieve "freedom of travel" with the Netherlands...

"Vaccine Passport", "Signal Light System", "Tourism Bubble"... Two-handed travel and epidemic prevention

　　While opening up tourism, epidemic prevention cannot be relaxed.

For cross-border travel, the nucleic acid test certificate is still a necessary "pass".

In the face of a large influx of foreign tourists, Greece has also introduced a number of supporting measures in terms of epidemic prevention and security.

According to the regulations of the Greek government, international tourists who have been vaccinated with the new crown vaccine or have a negative nucleic acid test within 72 hours can be allowed to enter the country.

Similarly, Portugal also requires British tourists to provide a certificate of negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours before entry. According to Austria’s policy, only travelers who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, have a negative nucleic acid test, and have recovered from COVID-19 can enter Austria freely without isolation. .

Iceland exempts vaccination and isolation requirements for people who have recovered, but nucleic acid testing is still required...

　　In addition, signing a bilateral "green health pass" or issuing a "vaccine passport" is also an important measure for Europe to ensure the safety of cross-border travel.

Since May 10, 15 countries including Greece, Spain, Italy, Malta, Bulgaria, Estonia, Italy have carried out the trial operation of the "digital green certificate" system, which is expected to be officially put into use in the European Union in June.

France has voted to pass the "Health Pass" program on May 12.

On May 17, the "Vaccine Passport" on the U.K. National Health Service (NHS) App was officially launched.

The EU also encourages the launch of a "vaccine passport" as soon as possible to facilitate the cross-border movement of EU citizens.

　　In order to promote cross-border travel, many countries have also proposed "traffic light systems" and "tourism bubbles" plans that classify countries based on the current situation of the epidemic.

The French government is classifying countries into three levels of "red", "orange" and "green" according to the severity of the new crown epidemic. This will provide a basis for people who want to travel abroad this summer.

The UK will also adopt this plan.

The Netherlands proposed that a "tourism bubble" could be formed between the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany to promote travel between the three regions.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia, Eva-Maria Limitz, also put forward a similar idea, hoping to restore the "Baltic Bubble" before the arrival of summer, covering the three countries of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia.

Time cost, the spread of variant viruses... Can the European travel boom be realized?

　　The effect of relaxing the restrictions on cross-border travel is immediately apparent: the number of holiday reservations in European countries that are open to tourism has increased rapidly.

Experts said that the tourism industry is an important economic pillar of Europe, but the new crown epidemic has brought a fatal blow to the European tourism industry.

The people's long-standing desire to travel may make up for the loss of the previous tourism industry to a certain extent.

According to data from the United Nations World Tourism Organization, in 2020, the number of tourists in Europe will drop to 221 million, a decrease of 71%.

In terms of absolute tourist numbers, no continent will have a greater decline in 2020 than Europe.

　　Some experts have analyzed that there are still many uncertainties in whether the tourism industry in Europe can resume its former prosperity this summer.

First of all, cross-border travel is not liberalized in all countries, and the scale of tourists is still not on par with the previous ones.

In addition, due to the existence of nucleic acid testing and other requirements, tourists still have to bear more costs, including testing costs and time costs.

Moreover, although the idea of ​​implementing a "vaccine passport" in many European countries is good, at present, it is still difficult to implement it.

On the other hand, the vaccination speed seems to have not yet reached a satisfactory level, coupled with the spread of the new crown variant virus, also cast a shadow on the prospects for the recovery of the tourism industry.

As the shadow of the epidemic is difficult to eliminate for a while, this will continue to extend the recovery cycle of the tourism market.

Experts predict that it may take at least two years for the European tourism industry to return to the level before the epidemic.