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The (near) future of travel?

You could almost hear the emotional sighs of relief from all New Zealanders and Australians on the 19th of April 2021, where on this historic up mood day, the two countries opened up their borders to each other, creating an unrestricted (and no quarantine measures) two way travel bubble, for the first time in over a year of COVID-19.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-56796679

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMoA8z-eEPk

And there is good reason to celebrate – not only will the travel bubble allow families to reconnect, but the positive effects on each countries’ economies, in particular, the very badly beaten travel and tourism sectors, will be enormous. NZ earns close to $3 billion a year from Australians on holiday (pre-COVID), with Australians making up around 40% of holiday goers to NZ each year. The airlines are also very excited about the development, which will boost flights and profits.

And not only is this a great step forward for the two countries “down under” but it provides the world, a shining example of how to open up their borders in a safe and responsible way, on the road to recovery and normalization. Already there is chat to extend the bubble to other countries which have very low cases of COVID-19 (e.g. Singapore and Taiwan).

What do you all think of the Kiwi-Aussie travel bubble?

And as happy as I am for NZ and Australia, is it all good news? With this travel bubble, other issues arise such as, will this be the first step in “vaccine passports” and “green-list and black-list” countries – where countries will allow travel from certain countries but restrict others. And the way vaccine rollouts are progressing (very well in the richer developed countries (USA, UK, Australia) but not so well in poorer developing countries (India, Philippines, Brazil), will this lead to an even further divide between the rich western countries and the poorer nations – where there will be freedom of travel among the rich, whilst the poorer nations continue to suffer?

What do you think? Should we be concerned with the travel “haves” and the “have nots”?

I would be really interested in your views and comments on my blog.