Europe Is Opening: June EU Travel Restrictions, Covid-19 Test Requirements, Quarantine By Country

The picture across the EU (plus the U.K.) in June hasn’t looked as promising for the travel industry for months, with tourist activity increasing in line with vaccination rates and confidence levels. June is definitely the month that Europe reopens.

Compared with other regions around the world, Europe saw the largest decline in new Covid-19 infections and deaths during the last week of May–and about 44% of EU adults have now received at least one dose of vaccine, according to the WHO and ECDC.

A recent report by SiteMinder found that booking momentum has increased by 60% compared to pre-pandemic levels for the first time since March 2020, and that European bookings are responsible for this rise. The report states that “across the European continent, the relationship between reopening announcements and booking activity, as we saw last summer, is again clear, with travellers looking to lock in their plans as soon as they possibly can.”
The increase in European demand is showing in airline schedules–Jet Blue will start two new flights to London, and United Airlines has added 400 more flights in July, as reported on Good Morning America. Air traffic saw a 16% increase in flights taking off in the third week of May with an average of 8,132 flights operating every day across the region (a 277% increase on the same period in 2020 but still a 68% decline compared to 2019 numbers)–according to Daniel Baker, CEO of Flight Aware, a tracking company, as reported by The Telegraph.

Airfares are rising in return–and might increase by as much as 16% this summer. Whilst Memorial Day travel will be the biggest weekend since the pandemic began (with 1.5 million air travelers per day at the moment), experts say that the best EU deals are to be had now.

Many EU countries are expected to make announcements soon on when they might open, if they haven’t already. Virginia Messina, interim leader of the World Travel & Tourism Council said that “summer is a strong season for most markets, particularly Europe and the U.K. We really hope to see restrictions ease.”

However, there is still a little too much uncertainty for customers to be certain and too much volatility in border regulations to mean that summer is booked out–that means it’s a good time to book before the picture becomes clear and tour operators ramp up prices, expected by late June. Many EU/Schengen area countries are now open for tourism–some without quarantine, some only to the fully vaccinated, some only to other EU countries and some to anyone with a negative Covid-19 test result. Many more are expected to announce reopening throughout June (e.g. France) and July (Ireland).

The EU Digital COVID Certificate has now been firmly established as the way forward to ease travel across Europe this summer. This will be in the form of a QR code, either carried on a piece of paper or in a digital application, such as France’s TousAntiCovid app, on someone’s phone. Every EU country will be using a form of this by July 1.

The only possible cloud on the travel horizon for Europe and the U.K. (and the hope that the U.S. might soon revoke the EU/U.K. travel ban) is the rampant rise of the variant B.1.167.2 (the so-called Indian variant, now renamed Delta) in several parts of Britain. Whilst low at present, it is rising and the fear would be that it is transported to the EU before vaccination rates are high enough to fend it off.






Source: Forbes
Image Source: Getty Images