Brits may not be able to travel to some popular holiday destinations such as Spain or France if they fail to meet the Government’s requirements.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has confirmed that foreign holidays can resume on 17th May at the earliest. A traffic light system will be put in place to categorise countries based on their COVID-19 risk level. Mr Shapps said the move will allow Britain to “reopen travel safely and sustainably”.
Each country will be labelled as either green, amber or red – each with different levels of restrictions. The Government’s Global Travel Taskforce said it will consider infection rates, variants prevalence, access to genomic sequencing and vaccination rates when determining the colour of each country. The vaccination threshold requirement could be as high as 50 percent.
Currently under the system, British travellers would only be able to visit Israel and Gibraltar with the Seychelles and the Maldives also close to making the cut. However, here in Spain we are currently highly unlikely to be a busy getaway in May as the country has a vaccination rate below 15 percent. Despite the fact the country is traditionally highly popular with Brits of all ages. France and Italy are also not close to making the cut to be a ‘green’ list country – both with similarly low vaccination rates.
Countries under the ‘amber’ category may require British visitors to quarantine for 10 days on return and undertake more testing.
Speaking to the BBC, Mr Shapps said: “This is the first time I’m able to come on and say I’m not advising against booking foreign holidays. Yes, you’ll want to check what the situation is in two or three weeks’ time when that list – the green, amber, red, is produced. You’ll want to know that you’ve got good holiday insurance and flexible flights and the rest of it.
“But for the first time I think there is light at the end of the tunnel.
“We’ll be able to restart international travel, including cruises by the way, in a safe and secure way, knowing about the vaccinations, everything we know about the disease this year, and of course that abundance of caution – having the tests in place.”