Italy Considers Opening Safe Travel Corridors

Caribbean News…
31 August 2021 6:39pm
Italy

By Massimo Terracina

Photo: Vogon Today

While travel agent associations are on the warpath to draw the Italian Tourism Ministry’s attention in order to get some help from a newly installed dicastery (abolished in the 1990s following a really insane referendum), newly-appointed Tourism Minister Massimo Garavaglia is moving someway.

Mr. Garavaglia took some big flak for his statement that “tourism has boomed in summer”, concerning domestic occupancy, but indeed foreigners and outgoing travelers are almost completely missed, and so is value currency income. Bottom line: there is relatively good news for the outgoing sector, the most forgotten by politicians.

So, the long-awaited moment seems to have finally arrived. For now, we are only talking about future measures, but the press release issued today on the website of the Ministry of Tourism states that "Minister of Tourism Massimo Garavaglia, in agreement with his health colleague Roberto Speranza, will work shortly to restore the tourist corridors for exotic destinations."

The Goals Considered

The official ministerial note reports that it was Garavaglia himself sent a letter to Prime Minister Mario Draghi, underlining "the difficulties of travel agencies related to Covid restrictions for non-EU destinations and the unfair competition they suffer from foreign competitors".

The Ministry of Tourism, therefore, has asked to consider the possibility of restoring the corridors with the Red Sea, having the Egyptian government guarantee total vaccination of tour operators in the area. And this measure should also be valid for the Maldives, the Seychelles, Mauritius, Zanzibar, the Dominican Republic and Aruba.

Mr. Garavaglia also proposes that the connections to reach the aforementioned destinations should be operated through Covid-tested flights. He also stressed the importance of subscribing specific and proper insurance policies by the travelers. 

Finally, the minister also called for compliance with the Covid protocols applied in Italy to be equally respected in the relevant structures. 

All rules that could finally make it possible to restart even a sector that has now been stopped for almost two years.

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