Major European City Bans Rolling Suitcases

Under a new law suitcases must be carried and not dragged through the streets of the old town in Dubrovnik in Croatia, with anyone caught rolling their luggage facing a fine of £230 ($252).

The Croatian city sees a huge influx of visitors each year, which is great for the hospitality industry there, but not so fantastic for those wound up by the sound of miniature wheels rumbling across cobbles.

The anti-bag legislation is due to get even more severe in November, when all suitcases and bags will have to be left at the walls of the old town before visitors can enter.

Those laden with things who wish to enter the section of Dubrovnik will have to pay a courier to have their bags delivered to their accommodation by electric vehicle.

The laws have been passed by Dubrovnik mayor Mato Franković, who is attempting to lessen the impact of over tourism on the town.

Each year 1.5million people visit the city, which is almost 40 times the 41,000 people who live there full time.

Another additional noise-reducing measure just introduced will see cafes and bars with terraces where the noise level exceeds 55 decibels face fines and be forced to close for seven-day.

A video urging tourists to “respect the city,” will be shown on cruise ships docking at Dubrovnik and on Croatian Airline flights arriving in the country, Lonely Planet reports.

Walking around shirtless, riding bikes or e-scooters in the city centre, and climbing on statues are all behaviours that will be discouraged in the public announcement.

The city is currently trying to keep its world-heritage status six years after UNESCO warned disrespectful hordes were ruining the city.

In a bid to make Dubrovnik more sustainable, the number of tour buses and cruise ships docking in the port have been limited.

Despite this, the reputation of the city has only grown, capturing large numbers of the post-coronavirus-lockdown crowd looking to visit new place now that travel restrictions have been lifted.

Mayor Franković, who is trying to get the still rising tourist numbers to fall, said: “The most important thing is that Dubrovnik has stopped being a city of excessive tourism, although we still have a lot of work left.”

This UNESCO World Heritage site is one of the city's biggest highlights thanks to its eye-catching architecture, picturesque cobbled streets and beautiful Baroque churches.

If you are one of the 1.5million who make it there annually, a walking tour can be a great way of seeing the highlights.

Surrounding the Old Town are impressive walls which make for a scenic stroll as you can enjoy some great views of Dubrovnik and the ocean. The 1940 meters long-walls boast six fortresses.

Rector's Palace is one not to be missed off the itinerary with its intricate Gothic architecture, heaps of fascinating exhibits and plenty of artwork. If you're short on time it is possible to explore it under an hour or so, so if you are nearby it's still worth popping in.

If you're planning to spend a few days in the city it's worth leaving space on the itinerary for a trip to Banje Beach.

Here you'll find everything from high end bars and beach clubs to families tucking into picnics on towels along the shore.

The beach can get quite busy during peak seasons but it offers some pretty views of Dubrovnik, not to mention there are heaps of boat tours you can take to visit the islands.

Source: https://www.mirror.co.uk/

Travelore News: The UK Announces $12 Entry Fee For Travelers

The United States has been charging visitors for electronic travel authorization since 2009, and now the United Kingdom and the European Union are rolling out entry fees, too. Also in our latest CNN Travel roundup, we bring you a double-decker plane seat and bunk beds in the sky.

UK to charge travelers for entry

Visa waiver schemes have been around for a while. The United States has the $21 ESTA, valid for two years, and Europe will be introducing the 7 euro ETIAS (about $7.50 on exchange rates this week) in 2024. That one will last you three years.

The United Kingdom, you may recall, rather famously fled the EU coop a couple of years back. Now it’s revealed the price tag for its own scheme, the ETA (Electronic Travel Authorisation): £10 (about $12.50) for two years.

Admittedly, that’s only about the price of a large fish and chips, but it does mean access to the nations that gave us the Tower of London and Edinburgh Castle will be more expensive than a pass to the home countries of the Eiffel Tower, the Coliseum, the Sagrada Familia and the Acropolis combined.

The plan is for the scheme to be rolled out for people who don’t require a visa to enter the United Kingdom – including US and EU nationals – by the end of 2024, with the first nation to join the scheme being Qatar later this year.

Source: Maureen O'Hare, CNN

EU takes US Off Safe Travel List; Backs Travel Restrictions

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union recommended Monday that its 27 nations reinstate restrictions on tourists from the U.S. because of rising coronavirus infections there, but member countries will keep the option of allowing fully vaccinated U.S. travelers in.

The decision by the European Council to remove the U.S. from a safe list of countries for nonessential travel reverses the advice that it gave in June, when the bloc recommended lifting restrictions on all U.S. travelers before the summer tourism season.

The EU’s decision reflects growing anxiety that the rampant spread of the virus in the U.S. could jump to Europe at a time when Americans are allowed to travel to the continent. Both the EU and the U.S. have faced rising infections this summer, driven by the more contagious delta variant.

The guidance issued Monday is nonbinding, however. American tourists should expect a mishmash of travel rules across the continent since the EU has no unified COVID-19 tourism policy and national EU governments have the authority to decide whether or how they keep their borders open during the pandemic.

More than 15 million Americans a year visited Europe before the coronavirus crisis, and new travel restrictions could cost European businesses billions in lost travel revenues, especially in tourism-reliant countries like Croatia, which has been surprised by packed beaches and hotels this summer.

“Nonessential travel to the EU from countries or entities not listed (on the safe list) ... is subject to temporary travel restriction,” the council said in a statement. “This is without prejudice to the possibility for member states to lift the temporary restriction on nonessential travel to the EU for fully vaccinated travelers.”

U.S. travelers would have to be immunized with one of the vaccines approved by the bloc, which includes Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson&Johnson.

Possible restrictions on U.S. travelers could include quarantines, further testing requirements upon arrival or even a total ban on all nonessential travel from the U.S.

In Washington, White House press secretary Jen Psaki stressed Monday that the EU travel restrictions applied to the unvaccinated, adding that “the fastest path to reopening travel is for people to get vaccinated, to mask up and slow the spread of the deadly virus.”

Paski told reporters that the U.S. government is working across federal agencies to develop its own policy for international travel, with the possibility of strengthening testing protocols and potentially ensuring that foreign visitors are fully vaccinated. But she said no final decision has been made yet.

The EU recommendation doesn’t apply to Britain, which formally left the EU at the beginning of the year and opened its borders to fully vaccinated travelers from the U.S. earlier this month.

The United States remains on Britain’s “amber” travel list, meaning that fully vaccinated adults arriving from the U.S. to the U.K. don’t have to self-isolate. A negative COVID-19 test within three days before arriving in the U.K. is required and another negative test is needed two days after arriving.

The EU also removed Israel, Kosovo, Lebanon, Montenegro and North Macedonia from the safe travel list on Monday.

Meanwhile, the United States has yet to reopen its own borders to EU tourists, despite calls from the bloc to do so. Adalbert Jahnz, the European Commission spokesperson for home affairs, said Monday that the EU’s executive arm remained in discussions with the Biden administration but so far both sides have failed to find a reciprocal approach.

In addition to the epidemiological criteria used to determine the countries for which restrictions should be lifted, the European Council said that “reciprocity should also be taken into account on a case-by-case basis.”

The European Council updates the safe travel list every two weeks, based criteria related to coronavirus infection levels. The threshold for being on the EU safe list is having not more than 75 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 inhabitants over the last 14 days.

The U.S. , meanwhile, is averaging more than 155,000 new coronavirus cases and 1,200 deaths per day, and several U.S. states have more COVID-19 patients in the hospital now than at any other time during the pandemic.

Authorities in Oregon are seeking extra refrigerated trucks because morgues are at capacity and Florida is in a similar situation after a week in which more than 1,700 people died from the virus in the state. Hospitals are desperately running out of staff in several states, and the start of the school year has brought even more fears that the outlook will worsen as millions of unvaccinated students return to their classrooms.

U.S. school districts have been struggling over whether to impose mask mandates, sometimes even suing in states where officials are against such requirements.

Vaccine hesitancy also remains a problem in many locations in the U.S., where 61% of the eligible population is inoculated against the virus. In contrast, Britain has fully vaccinated over 78% of adults and EU countries have inoculated nearly 70% of those over 18.

Spain Gears Up For Summer, Lifts Restrictions On UK Tourists

MADRID (AP) — Spain is revving up for a return of summer tourists, with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Friday offering an upbeat outlook after his government lifted travel restrictions on British visitors and the European Union moved a step closer to allowing cross-border travel.

Sánchez said those two developments will bring “a very much better summer” than last year, when the tourist industry in one of the world’s most popular vacation destinations was crushed by limits on travel and gatherings due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We are hugely thrilled at the prospect of our tourism industry recovering, of the streets of our towns and cities filling up once more,” he told an annual tourism congress in Madrid.

Spain, Sánchez said, will be “delighted, extremely delighted” to receive British tourists again.

Spain is lifting its restrictions on travelers from the United Kingdom beginning Monday. In 2019, Britain sent 18 million people to Spain, the most of any country.

However, Sánchez didn’t mention that Spain is on the U.K. government’s amber list, meaning people traveling back to the U.K. from Spain still need to go into quarantine for 10 days and get multiple COVID-19 tests — a consideration that is likely to dampen enthusiasm for a Spanish holiday. Britons who can’t work from home likely will not be going to Spain until the rules change.

Sánchez said it was “extraordinary news” that the EU is poised to introduce by July 1 a system of COVID-19 travel certificates for EU citizens, allowing them to travel freely across the bloc.

Tourism is a mainstay of the Spanish economy and Sánchez expressed hope that it can be “the engine that hauls the economy forward” after the economic devastation of the pandemic.

The tourism sector accounted for 12% of Spanish GDP in 2019, but that plummeted to just under 6% in 2020.

EU Sets Out Virus Pass Plan To Allow Free Travel By Summer

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union’s executive body proposed Wednesday issuing certificates that would allow EU residents to travel freely across the 27-nation bloc by the summer as long as they have been vaccinated, tested negative for COVID-19 or recovered from the disease.

With summer looming and tourism-reliant countries anxiously waiting for the return of visitors amid the coronavirus pandemic, the European Commission foresees the creation of certificates aimed at facilitating travel between EU member nations. The plan is set to be discussed during a summit of EU leaders next week.

“We all want the tourist season to start. We can’t afford to lose another season,” European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova told Czech public radio. “Tourism, and also culture and other sectors that are dependent on tourism, terribly suffer. We’re talking about tens of millions of jobs.”

The topic of vaccine certificates has been under discussion for weeks in the EU, where it proved to be divisive. The travel industry and southern European countries with tourism-dependent economies like Greece and Spain have pushed for the quick introduction of a program that would help eliminate quarantines and testing requirements for tourists.

But several other EU members, including France, argued that it would be premature and discriminatory to introduce such passes since a large majority of EU citizens haven’t had access to vaccines so far.

To secure the participation of all member countries, the commission proposed delivering free “Digital Green Certificates” to EU residents who can prove they have been vaccinated against COVID-19, but also to those who have tested negative for the virus or can prove they recovered from it.

“Being vaccinated will not be a precondition to travel,” the European Commission said. “All EU citizens have a fundamental right to free movement in the EU, and this applies regardless of whether they are vaccinated or not. The Digital Green Certificate will make it easier to exercise that right, also through testing and recovery certificates.”

According to data compiled by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, less than 5% of European citizens have been fully vaccinated amid delays in the delivery and production of vaccines. The European Commission says it remains confident that it can achieve its goal of having 70% of the EU’s adult population vaccinated by the end of the summer.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said the travel certificates “will help boost tourism and the economies that rely heavily on it.” Europe’s aviation industry urged EU governments to ensure the passes are operational in time for the peak of the summer travel season.

The commission proposed that all vaccines rubberstamped by the European Medicines Agency should be automatically recognized, but also offered governments the possibility to include other vaccines like Russia’s Sputnik or China’s Sinovac, which haven’t received EU market authorization.

The European Commission guaranteed that “a very high level of data protection will be ensured” and said the certificates will be issued in digital format to be shown either on smartphones or paper.

EU officials also hope that vaccine certificates will convince the member states which have introduced travel restrictions aimed at slowing down the pace of new infections to lift their measures. The EU’s executive arm has previously warned six countries that their travel-limiting measures, which in Belgium go as far as a ban on nonessential trips, could undermine the core EU principle of free travel and damage the single market.

The commission said the certificates should be suspended once the World Health Organization declares the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

If agreed by the EU leaders, the proposal will need to be approved by EU lawmakers to enter into force.

By SAMUEL PETREQUIN

EU Nations Set To Adopt Common Travel Rules Amid Pandemic

 

In this Sunday, March 15, 2020 file photo, Polish policemen talk to drivers at the closed border crossing near Hradek nad Nisou, Czech Republic. European Union countries are set to adopt a common traffic light system to coordinate traveling across the 27-nation bloc, but a return to a full freedom of movement in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic remains far from reach. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek, File)

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union countries are getting ready to adopt a common traffic light system to coordinate traveling across the 27-nation bloc, but a return to a full freedom of movement in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic remains far from reach.

In addition to causing the deaths of at least 151,000 EU citizens and plunging the EU’s economy into recession, the coronavirus has also landed a blow to a cherished cornerstone of EU citizenship, the free movement of people.

When the virus struck in March, several EU countries decided to close their borders to non-citizens without talking to their neighbors, creating huge traffic jams and slowing down the delivery of much-needed medical equipment.

The cacophony, which also played havoc with millions of tourists caught off guard by the virus, prompted the EU’s executive arm to push for a more unified approach. The EU commission last month came up with proposals that have been discussed and amended before their scheduled approval by EU nations on Tuesday.

“This new system will make things easier for citizens. I am glad that we found this solution together,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.

The key measure is a common map of infections drawn up by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. It will sort European regions into green, orange and red zones according to the severity of coronavirus outbreaks, taking into account new confirmed cases per 100,000 people and the percentage of positive tests.

Under the latest proposal, red zones should be areas where COVID-19 cases are more than 50 per 100,000 people during a 14-day period and the percentage of positive tests reaches at least 4%. Regions with a lower positive rate but where the total number of cases is more than 150 per 100,000 will also be classified red.

In light of the very high level of infections across the continent, it means that most of the bloc should be classified as red or orange.

The harmonization stops short of providing common rules for the EU’s orange and red zones. Travelers from green areas won’t face limits on their journeys, but national EU governments will continue to set their own restrictions such as quarantines or mandatory testing upon arrival for people coming from orange or red zones.

The commission has recommended mandatory testing for travelers from the most dangerous zones but can’t impose such a measure because health and border issues remain the prerogative of national governments. The goal was to create a way for EU states not to close their borders to one another.

EU countries have yet to come up with a unified length of self-isolation following an exposure to the virus, but they did agree to mutually recognize test results in all members. They will also to develop a harmonised passenger locator form for all means of transport.

According to the commission, a list of essential travelers allowed to move freely across the bloc will also be devised during Tuesday’s meeting and cross-border workers should be unaffected by the restrictions.

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Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

EU Ebola Response: Member States Send Additional Health Personnel To The Region

The European Union and its Member States continue to mobilize all available resources to help contain the largest Ebola epidemic on record.

In response to the EU's call for the mmobilization of qualified, trained and experienced health workers, Greece will send a team of six medical personnel - four doctors, a nurse and a paramedic- to the affected countries of West Africa through the Union Civil Protection Mechanism, as well as contributing to the funding of much-needed material. This was announced in a joint statement by EU Ebola Coordinator Christos Stylianides and the Greek Minister of Health, Mavroudis Voridis, on Saturday 6 December, in Athens.

"We welcome and applaud Greece's decision to deploy medical staff to the most affected countries,only the second Member State to do so. The European Union will provide all necessary support for this initiative," said Christos Stylianides, EU Ebola Coordinator and Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, who recently visited the three most affected countries Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. "I call on all Member States to mobilise additional resources. More health personnel, more trainers for health workers, more epidemiologists are urgently needed on the ground."

Several Member states have already responded to the Commissioner's call. France, for instance, recently offered two additional medical teams who work in Guinea and Mali, and Sweden deployed 42 doctors, nurses and other health personnel via the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, who currently run a treatment center in Liberia.

To support the mobilization of international humanitarian aid workers, the EU member States' contributions are also strengthening the capacities to evacuate international aid staff who contract Ebola. Following Luxembourg which announced the availability of two planes for this purpose in November, Germany has now made available an airplane fully equipped for the treatment of severe Ebola cases.

To stop the epidemic from spreading further, mobile laboratories for early detection of the virus are deployed in the affected region. The most recent contribution was offered by Belgium on Friday; a mobile laboratory will be deployed to Guinea shortly with support via the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.

A coherent European response

The European Union has been active in the response to the Ebola emergency from the start. The total EU contribution to the fight against Ebola is over EUR 1.1 billion of which over EUR 374 million has been provided by the European Commission for humanitarian and development aid, early recovery assistance as well as medical research. The EU has also deployed humanitarian experts and specialists in infectious diseases to the region and coordinates the Member States' contributions in aid supplies, medical equipment, ambulances and field hospitals.

Background

West Africa is currently facing the worst Ebola epidemic on record. More than 17 000 people have been infected and more than 6 000 people have died in the affected countries.

The unprecedented scale of the Ebola epidemic requires a robust and effective coordinated international response. Beyond the human tragedy, the disease is having devastating effects on the security and economy of the whole region, including the collapse of health systems in Liberia and Sierra Leone as well as shortcomings in the food security and nutrition, governance, agriculture, security and other key areas.

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