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* FACTBOX on health apps, vaccine certificates:
By Sarah Young, Clara-Laeila Laudette and Laurence Frost
LONDON/MADRID/PARIS, March 5 (Reuters) - The race to roll
out vaccination passports is spurring competition among travel
companies and tourist destinations for the large number of
Britons set to receive COVID-19 shots before the summer.
Thanks to its swift vaccine deployment https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps,
Britain is the only major European country likely to inoculate
a large share of working-age adults by summer. They may become
the first big regional test of digital health credentials in
development.
Airlines such as easyJet saw outbound bookings from
Britain surge last week as the government raised the prospect of
a return to quarantine-free summer travel, and the European
Union agreed to develop vaccine passports under pressure from
tourism-dependent southern countries.
But cooped-up consumers' getaway plans face reality checks –
from unpredictable virus variants to lingering EU divisions over
vaccine passports, with France leading resistance from several
states over political and discrimination concerns.
Britain's tentative move towards restoring travel "puts
pressure on other countries to do the same, which is good for
us", said Grigoris Tasios of the Greek Hoteliers' Federation.
Greece has eased restrictions for vaccinated Israelis and is
discussing a similar arrangement with the UK.
Tourism from Germany, another big travel market lagging the
UK on vaccinations, hinges on Berlin dropping quarantines for
tested passengers, Lufthansa Chief Executive Carsten
Spohr said this week.
In the aftermath of Britain's departure from the EU, its
reputedly unruly tourists are at the centre of a battered travel
industry's hopes for the peak season.
Spain, typically Britons' number-one destination by far, has
pushed hard for EU vaccination certificates. The island of
Mallorca's mostly shuttered hotels anxiously await details,
their spokeswoman Maria Duran said.
"We're paying very close attention to the UK, the first
country to design and share a roadmap for restoring mobility,"
she said. Spain saw UK visitor numbers plunge to 3.1 million
last year from more than 18 million in 2019.
'DON'T COME' - FRENCH MAYOR
Athens is appealing directly to British consumers.
Those with shots will be spared tests, with or without the
EU's blessing, tourism minister Harry Theocharis said in UK
media interviews.
Tourism sustains a fifth of Greece's workforce and economy,
hit by a 76% drop in international arrivals last year and 14
billion euros ($17 billion) in lost sector revenue.
Greece's position, and similar Spanish assurances, contrast
with the message from France, the second-ranked destination for
Britons – which is in no hurry to welcome them back.
"Don't come," the mayor of Nice Christian Estrosi advised
potential overseas visitors last month as the Mediterranean city
grappled with a faster-spreading COVID-19 variant first
identified in Britain. "It's not the time."
As a result, airlines and tour operators are pushing
"sun-and-sea" bookings to Spain, Greece and Portugal in a bid to
bring in much-needed cash.
"The trend now is towards what's likely to be open," said
Toby Kelly, CEO of UK travel agency Trailfinders, pointing to a
"massive pickup in demand" to Greek destinations.
"Greece has been the big story, with its government totally
behind vaccine certificates."
Without waiting for Brussels, Cyprus joined the rush on
Thursday, announcing that vaccinated UK tourists could enter
from May 1 without testing or quarantine.
Andy Davies, a 43-year-old British company director who
booked a Mallorca villa for July after getting vaccinated, said
he was reassured by Britain's reopening plans and "noises coming
out of Europe about the vaccine passport".
Free cancellation guarantees on the rental and easyJet
flights also helped, he said.
"Clearly there are still risks."
'QUEUES OUT THE DOOR'
Whether and how a EU vaccination passport would work with UK
and other versions is unclear. Airlines are developing a Travel
Pass app through industry body IATA, while the World Economic
Forum is working on another alternative, CommonPass. See
FACTBOX:
Without digitisation, document checks will quickly become
unworkable when travel picks up, IATA warns. Even at 10% of
pre-crisis traffic, test paperwork is already creating airport
bottlenecks as staff spend 20 minutes with each passenger.
"Without automating these procedures (it's) going to be very
difficult to get everyone away over the summer," Heathrow
Airport boss John Holland-Kaye said. "All airports would have
queues out the door."
Even after the EU go-ahead at a Feb. 25 summit, ambivalence
among governments like France, Germany and Belgium could hamper
vaccine passports' deployment.
"I would not accept a system that makes access to this or
that country conditional on a (vaccine) certificate," said
French President Emmanuel Macron. "Our younger people will not
have been vaccinated by the end of June or July."
Airlines are aware of the sensitivities.
"I think we should not call it a vaccine passport," Virgin
Atlantic CEO Shai Weiss said recently. "It's really a digital
health app."
Without faster progress towards an international standard,
more governments are likely to go their own way.
French regional airports are usually thronged with the 10
million UK passengers who fly in each year – the biggest
national contingent. But they are worried about losing another
summer, their UAF association chief Thomas Juin said, unless
Paris sets out its own terms for a tourism revival.
"The more time goes by with Spain and Greece taking action,
the more France is going to be left behind," he added.
(Reporting by Sarah Young in London, Clara-Laeila Laudette in
Madrid and Laurence Frost in Paris; Additional reporting by
Karolina Tagaris in Athens, Belen Carreno in Madrid, Conor
Humphries in Dublin and Michel Rose in Paris; Writing by
Laurence Frost; Editing by Pravin Char)
