Coronavirus: Can we start thinking about international travel again?
Simon Calder answers your questions on summer holidays and vaccinated hotel staff
Q What evidence do you have to suggest that we will all be going to Europe in “early spring”. This seems to contradict everything we have been told.
Caterina T
A Just a reminder on current travel rules. You and I are unable to go on holiday anywhere in the UK or abroad. British travellers who happen to be overseas at present and who want to come home must test negative for coronavirus before boarding a plane, and self-isolate on arrival for 10 days.
Unsurprisingly, almost no one is travelling. Many people see this as a good thing and would like the UK borders to be closed completely. In the next few weeks though, I expect the outlook to become much brighter. As the appalling death toll from Covid-19 slows and millions more people are protected against the virus, I believe that the governments of the four nations will start to dismantle the barriers against travel – both within the UK and abroad. I predict domestic restrictions and blanket quarantine will be gone before the end of March, though the need to have a coronavirus test before travelling back to the UK may endure and many countries will remain on the no-go list.
At the same time, European holiday nations will start to open up to tourism. Some may wait a few more weeks as they battle with particularly high levels of coronavirus and vaccinate the most vulnerable in their populations; Portugal and Spain will not be first to the party. Others may offer easy access only to visitors who can produce a vaccination certificate. But as intense competition for the post-pandemic tourism market gets under way, I expect countries such as Greece, Italy and Cyprus to welcome us back at some time in April.
Don’t expect any coherence in the way that these travel possibilities emerge: last summer, as the first lockdown came to an end, even the four UK nations had very different approaches to domestic travel. But as Europe wakes up from this dreadful winter, the opportunities to travel safely and responsibly will multiply. By May – which I will happily define as early summer – European travel will flourish. Do hold me to these predictions.
Will I need a GB sticker when driving in Europe?
Q I just read a report that said a GB sticker is required for driving in Europe even if the registration plates already have GB on them.
Did one of your recent articles not say the opposite? Not that I have any plans to go anywhere in the near future.
Stuart G
A Like so many travel issues to do with the UK’s decision to leave the European Union, the answer is pretty complicated.
Millions of British cars have registration plates with the “EU identifier” – the blue rectangle on the left-hand side that shows the 12 stars of the European Union and the letters GB. If that is the case for your car, you do not need to replace the plates but the identifier no longer has any value. From 2021 onwards everyone with such plates must also display a GB sticker.
Some plates have a GB identifier on the left-hand side without the EU stars – sometimes with a Union flag, sometimes not. Despite some assertions to the contrary, this is not a “benefit” of Brexit; the European Union has allowed such plates for the past 20 years. These will continue to be valid almost everywhere in the EU, except in three countries. Two of these are largely irrelevant – the Mediterranean islands of Cyprus and Malta – while the third is not. It’s Spain, by far the most popular destination for British holidaymakers.
All drivers of UK-registered cars that require a GB sticker must comply with the Vienna Convention: “The letters shall have a height of at least 0.08m and their strokes a width of at least 0.01m. The letters shall be in black on a white background having the shape of an ellipse with the major axis horizontal.” But if you confine your driving to Ireland, you need no GB sticker.
The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, called the ending of EU plates and driving licences “a historic moment for British motorists” – presumably because it takes us back to the days before membership of the European Union simplified so many things.
How can I make sure hotel staff have been vaccinated?
Q I have had my first AstraZeneca jab and I’m looking forward to the second by the end of April. At that stage I will feel much more confident about travelling. I intend to spread my wings for the summer and make up for lost time in exploring various parts of the UK and Europe.
However I would prefer to know that the people working in hotels (as well as airlines and rental car firms, etc) have also been vaccinated. Is there any way that I can reasonably stipulate that?
Name supplied
A I understand your reason for asking: as we know no vaccination is guaranteed to be 100 per cent effective, and while coronavirus continues to be rife it is essential to continue to take precautions. But I believe the answer is a straight “no”.
From a customer’s point of view it seems entirely reasonable to say: “Before I spend my money on your product can you assure me that I will not be at risk of contracting the virus from your staff?”
Right now, though, I cannot think of a single travel company that would wish to accept that as a contract term. Of course every firm wants to minimise risk, which is why they have invested so much cash and energy in devising systems for the coronavirus era. Most will doubtless have testing regimes in place, too.
Some organisations may be keen to offer “all our staff are immunised” as a sales pitch. But even this is a legal minefield. If I worked on a hotel reception desk, the management could invite me to share my vaccination status. But I could legitimately decline, saying: “You have no right to know about my health.”
The bosses may riposte that they have a duty of care towards guests and perhaps move me to the kitchens where I would not be customer-facing. But like so much in the Covid pandemic, there are no easy and clear answers.
All I can suggest is that you assess the situation after your second jab (you’ll need to wait a couple of weeks for the booster to do its work) and aim for locations with a low overall prevalence of coronavirus cases.
Should we switch our May Portugal flight to Spain?
Q I was wondering whether you think we should change our May Portugal flights to Spain? I appreciate you are busy but I would love to know what you think.
Mrs C
A Thank you for your concern! One reason I am more occupied than usual is because I am trying to keep tabs on the constantly changing tangle of restrictions brought in by individual governments to limit the spread of coronavirus. They have the predictable side effect of making it difficult to predict the prospects for international travel in a few months’ time.
I presume you ask because at present Portugal is on the government’s “red list” – one of 33 countries from which arrivals to the UK must self-isolate along with their households for 10 days. Sometime this month the quarantine obligation will get even tougher, with a mandatory hotel stay at the traveller’s expense. The experience is likely to involve no exercise, no room cleaning, no smoking and with security guards ensuring the returning passenger complies with the rules.
It is difficult to imagine anybody would take a holiday if that regime awaited them on their return. So I am seeking to calculate what needs to change in order for a holiday in Portugal to be feasible. The first hurdle is that the UK relaxes its blanket ban on leisure travel abroad. I predict that will end sometime in March.
Next, the destination country needs to be prepared to welcome tourists in. Given the extremely high levels of infection in both Portugal and Spain, I think restrictions will still be in place until some date in April. The final component: has the UK government removed the obligation for onerous mandatory quarantine on your return?
Looking at previous quarantine rule changes, I predict that the imposition of hotel quarantine against arrivals from Portugal will last between four and six weeks. Assuming a start date for hotel quarantine in the week beginning 15 February, that points to a finish by Easter. So a May holiday in Portugal looks fairly plausible.
In your position I certainly wouldn’t change flights, but nearer the time it may be that the airline will cancel – at which point you are entitled to a full refund to allow you to reassess what to do about an early summer holiday.
Email your questions to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder
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