Paradise and the pandemic: Tourist hotspots hope summer travel heats up – By Dave Lawler (Axios) / May 18 2020
Tourist hotspots around the world face a daunting challenge: how to bring in much-needed visitors while keeping COVID-19 out.
Why it matters: As the summer season heats up in the Northern Hemisphere, that’s a multitrillion-dollar question.
Paradise and the pandemic
Few places on Earth are more dependent on international arrivals than Aruba, where tourism accounted for 86% of GDP in 2018.
- Live videos showed sunny if blustery weather on beaches there this afternoon, but they were entirely devoid of people.
- Aruba has been closed to foreigners since March 16, and a shelter-in-place order is in effect, along with a curfew. There are currently just five active cases of COVID-19, with no new infections recorded for over a week.
- That will be hard to maintain once the island reopens to visitors. That’s scheduled to happen between June 15 and July 1, though some locals are understandably wary.
Antigua and Barbuda has set a more precise date. A flight from Miami on June 4 will be the first international arrival in 10 weeks. Flights from New York are expected to resume later in the summer.
- A proposal the government is considering would force travelers to undergo a COVID-19 test before arriving at the airport and then restrict them to their resorts (including beaches) for the duration of their stay.
- Hotel staff would be tested before returning to work and live on the property to avoid bringing infections in, Prime Minister Gaston Browne told the Miami Herald.
- Some protocols are still in development, including how to move people swiftly through the airport without unnecessary crowding.
Zoom out: Most Caribbean islands have seen relatively few cases of COVID-19, meaning the main concern is keeping infections out.
Continue to article: https://www.axios.com/travel-coronavirus-europe-rules-summer-tourism-3dc8210c-a1ac-4d0c-9b84-8c641d09d6aa.html
