TravTalk India Online Magazine
Gloria Guevara, President and CEO, WTTC, feels that the most frustrating challenge the industry and travellers alike have faced is the lack of a co-ordinated cross-border approach.She advocates a single standard.
Hazel Jain
Why do you think we are facing a lack of co-ordination during this pandemic?
This outbreak is similar to the 9/11 attacks in the way they posed a danger to a country’s security. Only now, it is a danger to the public health at large. This is an unprecedented territory and the different countries were not prepared for it and they did not have protocols in place to deal with it.
What has your experience been in terms of lack of a co-ordinated approach?
It has been a pleasure to work with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) but, unfortunately, other international organisations have failed us, to be honest. For instance, I don’t have a problem with WHO, but I do have a problem when I see one message from one director of a region in the morning saying it is okay to travel, and a different message in the afternoon that says it is better to quarantine. How do we fix that? We have the same situation with other international organisations that deal with governments. This creates a lot of confusion.
What according to you is causing this?
Co-ordination is exactly the challenge in this outbreak and it will be a challenge in tourism’s recovery. Just because we are concerned, the politicians, and remember I am also a former politician, are concerned with making decisions that impact their citizens and no one wants to take the risks. We don’t learn from the past. In the case of 9/11, we did a risk-based assessment. They need to do something similar for this situation as well.
But the governments need to learn from each other, and they aren’t. They are only concentrating on their citizens. They don’t understand that this world is now very connected or they don’t want to see it. Tourism can also be part of the solution for governments, and this is what is missing right now. What is also missing is that airport officials are not talking to health officials. And there is a lack of co-ordination there as well.
How can we fix this now?
It is not just the co-ordination among ourselves, it is the co-ordination among different countries as well. How do they implement these international system protocols? How does the UK co-ordinate with the USA, or the EU work with the US so that we can resume some international travel? We have been talking about testing for months now, and finally we see the light at the end of the tunnel. I don’t think the vaccine is going to be the only solution. We also need to have a process in place, moving forward with mutual trust and with co-ordination, so that we can be prepared for the next problem and recover faster from that.
Year 2020 will be remembered as the year the world stood still. We must never forget the pain and suffering this pandemic has caused millions of people from all corners of the earth. There has never been a greater need for the sector to come together in a globally coordinated way to ensure the recovery process is swift and painless.
Guevara’s essential principles for road to recovery
- International and public-private sector coordinated approach to effectively re-establish operations
- Internationally agreed testing framework and tracing programme
- Replacement of country-wide 14-day quarantine measures with selective quarantine of positive cases
- Elimination of travel advisories and bans on non-essential international travel
