The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) has joined with major international industry bodies to call for the restoration of international travel.
It is the belief of these groups that travel can safely restart without mandatory or widespread vaccination.
WTTC, which represents the global travel and tourism private sector, along with Airports Council International (ACI), the World Economic Forum (WEF), International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), said that the world cannot wait for the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines.
"WTTC welcomes the incredible developments and hugely encouraging medical advances on COVID-19 vaccines which has seen the beginning of coronavirus vaccinations," said Gloria Guevara, WTTC president and CEO.
Guevara noted that vaccines will help return the world to normal.
"The vaccines currently being rolled out are truly game-changers, and hopefully just the first of many which could transform the world, mark the beginning of our return to a more normal way of life and see the return of safe and confident international travel," she said.
"Safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines will be critical to combatting COVID-19 and restoring confidence for people to interact with one another. However, it will take considerable time to vaccinate the world and for the vaccines to have a significant effect on the global population, and the global Travel & Tourism sector simply cannot wait. Vaccination must not be a requirement to travel but should co-exist with testing regimes and be considered as a progressive enhancement to already safe travel."
She went on to call for the introduction of travel corridors and an agreed-upon set of measures to reintroduce safe travel before vaccine rollout.
"Governments must now demonstrate leadership by opening bilateral travel corridors on key international routes with countries that apply the same robust risk management processes," said Guevara.
WTTC believes that safety can be upheld through successful testing and that vaccines should not be a requirement to travel since the full rollout of vaccination programs could further delay a revival of the industry which it indicated needs to restart now in order to prevent the loss of millions of jobs and businesses.
According to WTTC research, 174 million global travel and tourism jobs are currently threatened.
Together with ACI, WEF, and ICC, WTTC has identified four key measures that need to be implemented to restore international travel safely. These measures include globally recognized testing regimes before departure, common health and hygiene protocols that are aligned with globally established standards set out by ICAO (and the WTTC Safe Travels protocols and Airport Health Accreditation), a risk management regime and internationally consistent and recognized travel passes.
WTTC warns against the use of "health passports," preferring internationally recognized travel passes that are currently being considered.
"As they become more available for travelers, there must be a proportionate approach to vaccination before travel balanced with a risk-based approach to testing," said Luis Felipe de Oliveira, Airports Council International (ACI) world director general. "Just as quarantine effectively halted the industry, a universal requirement for vaccines could do the same and a coordinated and risk-based approach to testing and vaccination going forward will provide passengers with a safe travel environment and foster confidence in air travel."
Christoph Wolff, head of mobility at the World Economic Forum called for a hybrid solution.
"Given the enormous challenge of achieving widespread vaccine distribution and availability, diagnostics will remain paramount for the foreseeable future," said Wolff. "It is imperative that governments and industry collaborate to enable a hybrid regime of risk management interventions which may include testing, vaccines, and other measures as part of a broader hierarchy of controls."
Businesses and livelihoods literally hang in the balance, making a solution crucial to the global economy.
Global mobility is a powerful economic driver-one that supports many businesses and livelihoods currently facing deeply uncertain futures. Hinging the revival of international travel on an extended global vaccine roll out would continue to jeopardize the futures of these businesses as well as those who rely on travel to safeguard their livelihoods," said John Denton, secretary general of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). "As a better approach, rapid and reliable systematic testing can effectively stem the spread of the virus today, allow travel to resume safely and enable an effective reboot of the global economy."
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