Irresponsible People Spread Coronavirus, Not Responsible Travellers
How can travellers be responsible for spreading Covid-19 by visiting places where Covid-19 has already spread?
In times of crisis we look for somebody or something to blame. As Covid-19 spreads around the world we have been quick to blame people who travel.
Tourism has been blamed for coronavirus, be it skiers at a European resort in February, business travellers going to and from China, or the selfish travellers who don’t understand that they need to stay at home and stop moving, just for once.
It’s easy to blame travellers. Travellers are nameless. The definition of travellers can be incredibly broad. And if nobody or nothing ever travelled, then neither would coronavirus.
Why Blame Travel and not Trade?
If travel is to blame, why not blame everything that travels? Every single day we handle goods that come from somewhere else. We don’t know the safety protocols in the factory, on the cargo plane, at the warehouses, maybe not even in the store. If we stopped everything that travels to prevent coronavirus, we’d need to stop all international trade.
How is travelling different to trade? Instead of goods moving around the world, with the potential to spread coronavirus, travellers move around the world, with the potential to spread coronavirus.
Some People are Irresponsible, Almost Everywhere in the World
Whether they are here, there or anywhere, people can be irresponsible. Whether they live on your street or on the other side of the world, it is irresponsible people that increase the spread of coronavirus. Travellers are people too. They can be responsible or irresponsible, just like people all over the world.
Travellers are More Responsible Than Ever
As people learn more about coronavirus and how it spreads, people become more responsible. Sure, some travellers visited a ski resort in February 2020 and transmitted coronavirus back to their home country. Remember February 2020? When hardly anyone outside China or Italy had heard of face masks and social distancing?
Travellers today are very aware of the risks. They see how different countries impose different rules and regulations. They see what works and how they can best stay safe, anywhere and everywhere they travel.
Regular travellers are taking PCR tests before and after their trips. They understand they are a risk and they take precautions, just like the people packing your goods in a warehouse or distribution facility.
People don’t suddenly become irresponsible when they travel. People are just as likely to be spreading coronavirus in your home town as they are when they go on holiday.
Stop Blaming Tourism — Let’s Unite and Travel
And as we blame tourism for travel, with very little evidence, and forget that travellers are just people too, it’s easy to forget the human side to the tourism industry.
Tourism represents 10.4% of the global economy. It is 1 in 11 jobs worldwide. Without tourism there are 300 million people without work. And it is not coronavirus preventing people from travel, it is the atmosphere of fear, blame and misinformation that stops tourism from restarting.
At this time we need to unite and support travel, just like we need to unite and support other industries terribly affected by coronavirus, such as hospitality. Travel, like hospitality, is something we all love and we will all want to do in the future, but without some support now it may not be around in the future.
Be Proud to TripSafe and Travel Now
Unfortunately, Covid-19 isn’t going to disappear overnight. When tourism restarts the virus will still be in circulation, somewhere in the world. There won’t be a day when coronavirus has ended and everything returns to how it was before. We all know there will be a new “normal” and in travel that means precautions.
The sooner we make tourism safe, the better we can recover tourism in the future. Perhaps you don’t want to travel now because you think it is unsafe. And then in June 2021 you think it is safe to travel and you want to travel. What happens between now and then? If nothing happens and there is no travel now, how can travel be safe when you want to travel again?
The more we travel now the more we make tourism safer for when hundreds of millions of people around the world want to travel again. The more we travel now the more we make it safer and better for everyone. If we travel now we can save some of the 300 million jobs in tourism.
Travel now and you support the tourism industry. You support 10.4% of the economy. You help to make travel safer for the years to come.
With access to reliable information you can travel now. You can be a more responsible traveller. So be proud to travel now. Be proud to TripSafe.
