Another industry voice is clamouring for Ottawa to come up with a concrete plan to restart travel based on a recent report by a panel of the government’s own panel of health experts.
The Canadian Travel & Tourism Roundtable is a Canada-wide coalition of leaders in the $102 billion tourism and travel sector that employs millions of Canadians. Members of the Roundtable include representatives from nearly four dozen airports, airlines, hotels, boards of trade and chambers of commerce across the country who are “working together to restart the sector smoothly and safely.”
Travel, the Roundtable reminds the government, "enables businesses to grow and thrive, and also provides a lifeline for Canadians to maintain essential links to family and friends."
Following last week’s release of the federal government’s COVID-19 Testing and Screening Expert Advisory Panel report, the ‘Roundtable’ is urging Ottawa to immediately release an implementation plan based on the panel’s “ independent, science- and data-driven” recommendations in the context of increasing vaccination rates and dropping COVID cases in Canada.
The Roundtable points out the leadership of the travel industry in developing and implementing new health protocols and says it “looks forward to working together with government” to continue to improve practices and restart travel "based on metrics."
It’s asking Ottawa, “as part of that work”, to “heed the advice” of its science experts to:
- Eliminate the government hotel quarantine for all travellers;
- Eliminate pre-departure tests and quarantine for fully vaccinated travellers;
- Reduce quarantine for partially vaccinated travellers (after a test upon arrival) and unvaccinated travellers (after a test taken at day 7);
- Adjust border measures in stages; and,
- Put in place a system to validate proof of vaccination for arriving travellers as soon as possible.
It notes that Canada needs a vaccination certification process that’s standardized with other countries and says that the upcoming G7 summit is the time for Canada to “work with the international community toward a common approach."
