COVID-Bored and Restless?

"The pandemic has made people see how connected we are as a planet. We all play a part in it [contributing to the well-being of communities and the planet]."

"We can still travel and we can still see beautiful places and iconic places, but make it more connected to the destination."

"This is a rare chance to get to certain destinations when they're not crowded."

"I want to go to Italy this summer. It's been knocked back quite a bit and I want to show my support for the country. It's a beautiful place."

Bruce Poon Tip, founder, G Adventures, small-group travels, Toronto

Niagara Falls, Canada/United States

"Travel is an important tool for economic development as well as for conservation and sharing knowledge."

"I think that companies that can show they are doing something good for the community, or the planet, as well as for their customers will ultimately benefit."

"Many countries and destinations already have different visa restrictions and the like, but with the health regulations for post-COVID, there will be additional health checks and social distancing requirements."

"No one has a crystal ball, so no one really knows for sure to what extent travel will change. But international travel will have to adjust as countries and companies accommodate new regulations and restrictions."

Rachel Dodds, professor of of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Ryerson University

The Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt

Over 90 percent of the world's population -- representing 7.1 billion in total -- live in countries that now have travel restrictions, thanks to the global pandemic and the need to shut down business as usual and borders to international traffic, to protect their populations from exposure to that highly infectious pathogen that has succeeded as a global threat, to make millions sick, overwhelm national health-care systems, cause death to hundreds of thousands of health-compromised and elderly and collapse the global economy. 

Post-lock-down, while the pandemic, though still ravaging communities, appears to be slowly ebbing, even as a second and perhaps more successive waves (of possibly more severe mutated strains of the virus) are anticipated by the scientific community -- issuing cautions to governments not to re-open their economies too precipitously and warning people not to abandon caution on social distancing -- various countries have scheduled their re-openings at different times and to various extents.

In the process, an estimated 100.8 million jobs have been shed to the present, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council, based in London. And while it took an indecently short period of time for the alarm to spread over the role of international travel in spreading the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19, with the horror stories of how those giant floating towns that great ocean liners had become as living laboratories of infection, the new version of international travel will take quite a bit longer to establish its credentials.

Stonehenge, England

People may begin to book their travel itineraries with an eye on visiting places that were relatively unscathed by the novel coronavirus, like the Caribbean, Eastern Europe and Vietnam. The travel sector was valued at $13 trillion globally, employing over 330 million people in the year before COVID-19 entered the scene. And having people from wealthy nations travel to other countries whose heritage, culture and geography was found to be fascinatingly different, was also a mechanism for redistribution of wealth around the world.

Mr. Poon Tip, musing on the ways and means and obvious frailties to infection of the past, states his expectation that large, crowded resorts and cruise ships will become infinitely less attractive to travellers in the future who will look toward visiting different places at a different scale of travel. Above all, there will be a greater need to assure people when they travel, that doing so is safe under new guidelines and restrictions.  Where post-COVID additional health checks and social distancing requirements will demonstrate in part the changes to security and safety.

Acropolis, Athens, Greece

A greater demand for boutique hotels, charter yachts and off-the-beaten-path experiences will arise, guesses Mr. Morgan from the perspective of agencies whose specialty is luxury and experiential travel. For the time being, Canada and the United States have agreed to maintain a closed border for the present, while the European Union and Europe's passport-free travel Schengen zone, have closed borders to non-essential travel even as Austria, Germany and France gradually re-open their borders. 

Italy, Belgium, Iceland and Turkey all are considering re-opening to international travel in June, while Spain and Greece are aiming at international opening in July. An agreement between Australia and New Zealand for a trans-Tasman travel bubble is being formalized, as it seems the idea of creating travel bubbles between countries has found wide favour. 

Ambitious travellers aged between 30 and 50 are considered to be likeliest to plan for international travel, an age group and numbers that will expand as time goes on. Fears that hamper people planning for post-pandemic travel, will abate considerably once a vaccine has been found for the virus. And the countries hit hard by the relentless virus, with its death toll and economic fallout, countries always highly dependent on tourism, will work harder than ever to convince the world community that tourism is a reciprocal gift that enriches all who engage in it.

"The motivation behind how and why people travel will also look different."

"The importance of human connection will be at the forefront after so many weeks and months in isolation."

Tim Morgan, general manager, Virtuoso, Canada

The Great Wall of China