That Pleasure, Leisure Vacation Choice Abroad

"Can this [international travel] be done safely? The real answer is, 'look, in this era, there is going to be nothing that's without risk-- everything is going to be tied to some element of risk."
"People are going to have to make their own risk assessment to determine if this is worth it for them or their family, or not."
Dr.Isaac Bogoch, infectious disease scientist, Toronto

"So, unless you are going to screen every traveller immediately before each trip, then mass transit of any form comes with an inherent degree of risk."
Dr.Matthew Oughton, attending physician, division of infectious diseases, Jewish General Hospital, Montreal

"Even though I could screen completely negative and have a normal temperature today, I could be infectious and coughing and febrile tomorrow."
"If the symptom screening does pick up a couple of people, well, fine, that's helpful. But it might still miss 70 to 80 percent of people that might have COVID."
"If you're paying a lot of money for a transatlantic flight, there's a negative incentive for people to lie on those symptom screens, and get on the plane."
"But we know with this virus, even with good air exchanges, closed contacts and droplets are still a mode of transmission."
"We pose less of a threat to Europe. That doesn't mean Europe doesn't pose more of a threat to the average traveller."
Dr.Zain Chagla, associate professor of medicine in infectious disease, McMaster University, Hamilton

A family with members from North Carolina and Pennsylvania visits nearby Myrtle Beach, S.C. Domestic trips are expected to rise as people get comfortable with traveling again. (Jason Lee/The Sun News/AP)

To go, or not to go, that is the question. And the answer? Elusive at best. Troubling at the very worst, given the realities of today. The closed skies of today are verging on the opening skies of tomorrow. Travellers from selected countries are considered safe enough for the European Union to deem them welcome in European Union countries. The United States of America is not among those to be welcomed in those countries, not as long as COVID-19 infections continue to rage in various states.

Anthony Fauci, America's top infectious diseases expert has issued a forbidding warning that "if this does not turn around", cases in the United States could reach the dread figure of 100,000 daily. Canada, on the other hand, passes the criteria mounted for the 27-member EU bloc to represent a safe/er country to beckon as a visitor with its "stable or decreasing trend of new cases" over the past two weeks; citing as well the country's testing and contact tracing, and data reliability.

Those countries whose visitor status has been endorsed are to undergo review and update bi-weekly. And while EU member-states are now given an overall go-ahead to re-open their borders some may choose, like Denmark and Ireland, to forego the opportunity for the time being. Airlines everywhere are in deep financial straits. Now prepared to abandon social-distancing seating to resume using middle seats rather than have them vacant, may give some travellers pause for thought.

British Columbia's Health Minister did pause to issue this thoughtful statement: "What I'd like to hear from Transport Canada, from Health Canada is do they agree with this" move on the part of the badly beleaguered airlines, Air Canada and WestJet. Canadians are still being recommended by the federal government to avoid international non-essential travel. Any who enter or return to Canada are required to self-impose a 14-day quarantine. Failure to do so can result in a fine of up to $750,000, with a six-month imprisonment, or both.

A hotel in the Spanish island of Mallorca. (Jaime Reina/AP)

Thee is the reality that people expressing no or few symptoms are still capable of spreading COVID-19. Airlines have adopted some reassuring protective measures, such as pre-boarding temperature checks, health screening and masking requirements, but data appears to suggest that few people appear to take their flight with the first symptom of COVID-19 -- fever -- being present; in the commonplace actuality of pre-symptomatic transmission.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most viruses tend not to spread on flights as a result of the way air is circulated and filtered, which seems reassuring, but balanced against the probability or possibility of contracting the virus exposed to the presence of those shedding infectious droplets without being aware of having contracted COVID, decision-making represents a calculated and perhaps fraught decision to proceed.

And as Dr.Chagla points out, travel should be restricted to immediate or reasons related to urgency, setting aside visions of travel linked to pleasure, as a measure of pure self-preservation in risk-potential.

Passengers are distanced on this flight from Vancouver to Calgary, but that is unlikely to last as more people start flying again. (Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press/AP)

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