The head of the European tourism Association said that it is necessary to recognize the Russian vaccine
Tom Jenkins, Director General of the European Tourism Association (ETOA), said that Russia has extensive experience in developing vaccines for various diseases, and there is no reason why the Russian coronavirus vaccine should not be recognized.
We have countries that have already recognized the Sputnik V vaccine, and it is important that Russians start arriving in European countries. It is great that Slovenia, Greece, Cyprus, San Marino have started to recognize the Russian vaccine. The same goes for Egypt and Turkey. This means that we already have a fairly wide choice of destinations, the global tourism industry is beginning to open again. There are not only medical but also political problems, they are beyond our influence, he said at the Online Travel Mart.
Jenkins stressed that you need to be patient and wait for the gradual opening of all directions, which will occur over time.
Of course, there are national interests in the field of inbound tourism, but now there is not much knowledge about Russian vaccines in the world, not everyone knows that Russia has extensive experience in developing vaccines. There is no reason why the Russian vaccine should not be recognized. I think we need to be patient and wait. We are already waiting 18 months in tourism, the industry is gradually reviving, it will slowly restart again.
Over the past year and a half, the entire global tourism industry has collapsed, there has been a very big decline. But the interesting point is that everyone who planned to travel in 2020 and 2021 has accumulated demand. They are going to go on trips in 2022. We see a lot of delayed, accumulated demand. All members of our association have stayed in business and they are optimistic about next year. Of course, the volumes will not return to the level of 2019, but everything will be better than in 2021, the expert said.
There is no certainty of a full recovery of tourism after the pandemic. “The economy of tourist service has been dormant for the past few months. We're not sure if she'll be able to fully recover, it's impossible to predict for sure. It all depends on the security measures associated with Covid-19. But it is possible that everything will return to the level of 2019. I think the pandemic situation will improve in a year or two. Everything will go in the direction of sustainable development. All of our members are trying to reduce their carbon footprint, working on this program. This is one of the most obvious major trends in international tourism, he concluded.
ETOA unites about 1.2 thousand companies operating in the field of tourism. These are tour operators, travel agencies, hosting companies, online travel agencies.
Source: tourism.interfax