COVID-19 has brought once hustling tourism industry to a complete standstill. 1 out 10 people are employed directly or indirectly in the travel and tourism industry across the world. Their livelihood is currently at stake. It is imperative that the tourism industry needs to get back soonest to also boost the global economic growth. But the question remains, how do we make a beginning? 

We have recently witnessed a TRAVEL BUBBLE introduced between Australia and New Zealand as an answer to an early start to scale up global tourism. There are more countries too that followed the trend. For a better understanding, a TRAVEL BUBBLE is an arrangement in which people will be allowed to travel between two countries that have managed to contain the spread of corona virus. 

If this effort is a success between two countries it can be expanded to include more safe countries and create more such travel bubbles in different regions. 

Immediate advantage of such travel bubble will be a positive effect on the economies of the participating countries. Also, even though the travelers will cross the border of their respective countries to travel abroad, this arrangement reduces the chance of getting infected by travelling to another country which is considered a big risk today. 

Of course, the international airports at both the countries and the airline carriers will have to make extra efforts to avoid any negligence in scanning passengers travelling in and out of such participating countries.

Travel bubble is now considered at various levels and applied for travel within large cities and towns in the same country too.  The success of a TRAVEL BUBBLE depends on how closely it is monitored and how effective is a response mechanism established between the two destinations to tackle and curtail the spread of any infection. As the time progresses such efforts encourages the possibility of increased travel, trade and tourism across various countries of the world.

Let us hope that we see many more attempts of TRAVEL BUBBLE across various regions around us and spreading further to make it a global reach. This is the possible way we will be able to take quicker steps to revive the travel and tourism industry back to its new normal.

By: Siddhesh Phadnis

Founder & Managing Partner

TRAVEL Andaz