Category Archives for Destinations.
President Biden announced that in addition to the testing requirement going into effect January 26th for passengers arriving in the U.S. off of international flights, there will be a quarantine requirement as well.
The details of the quarantine rule haven’t been published yet – who it applies to and how long it will last.
Thailand is technically open to visitors, but even with a negative Covid test there’s a 14 day quarantine requirement and the idea of being stuck inside a hotel room that long hasn’t been popular. It’s attracted only a few hundred tourists per month to the country.
However people will go to greater lengths to visit friends and relatives than they will for just a vacation long enough to justify the quarantine period. I saw on social media that the owner of my favorite Thai restaurant was back in Bangkok, in the middle of his quarantine period at a hotel with his wife. He was gracious enough to share his story and some photos.
While President Trump may have signed an order that would lift the travel ban on Europeans and Brazilians from entering the U.S., that order doesn’t go into effect until January 26 – six days after Joe Biden assumes office. The intention appears to be to reverse the lifting of the travel ban before it happens.
I think everyone’s ready to get back to normal after 2020 and a rocky start to 2021. Vaccines hold that promise, but the rollout is slow. And those with the means will go to lengths to accelerate their shots. That’s why I wrote back in November that I expected vaccine tourism to become a trend in early 2021. Last month we started to see travel agencies advertising vaccine tourism packages.
And now trips are actually happening.
Qantas started selling international tickets – for New Zealand at the end of March based on an expected ‘travel bubble’ reciprocally permitted visits between the two countries – and July 1 for the rest of their international route network including the United States. The CEO of Qantas, Alan Joyce, said he expected the country to re-open to international travel at that time.
The government of Australia was none too amused with Joyce’s announcement but they didn’t deny it.
The U.S. ban on travel from China was poorly executed, the ban on travel from Europe came too late, and the list of countries chosen for bans was incomplete. Once the virus was spreading, the U.S. didn’t ban travel within the country. Travel bans can work – see New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, etc. – but they have to be absolute and they can’t be lifted until the threat has passed.
Costa Rica has been one of a handful of places to welcome Americans in recent months. They’ve been dealing with significant spread of Covid-19 since August. So far over 160,000 Costa Ricans have been confirmed to have the virus, and around 2000 have died.
The country has new restrictions going into effect December 31.
No Covid-19 restrictions on travelers have been more erratic than Hawaii’s. The state’s planned re-opening date got shared and then pushed back several times. Communication around what tests would be accepted to avoid quarantine was poor. Even the state itself has gotten this wrong, sending a family into quarantine even with proper negative tests.
The island of Kauai even opted out of testing to avoid quarantine entirely after first re-opening with tests. Only their quarantine on arrival was 10 days, not 14.
The Netherlands has banned passenger flights from the U.K. in response to reports of a new strain of SARS-CoV-2 that spreads more easily. Planes can bring passengers to the U.K. but must return without passengers. The virus mutation has been detected in Denmark and Australia, but has not been discovered in the U.S. (yet).
What we know so far is that U.K. scientists believe it is far more transmissible, but doesn’t seem to be more dangerous, and shouldn’t mitigate the effectiveness of vaccines.
Thailand has re-opened to tourism albeit with restrictions such as a 15 day quarantine on arrival. People from all over the world can now travel to the country for their fix of beaches, boat noodles, and bar fines.
The Tourism Authority of Thailand is working to bring back vacationers, and has launched a partnership with Tinder hoping leisure travelers will swipe right on domestic trips within the Land of Smiles.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
