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Welcome to the age of Travel related bans.
Tuesday, 11th April 2017
Source : Joseph Fischer - Exclusive for 4Hoteliers.com

Joseph Fischer - Exclusive for 4Hoteliers.comExclusive: Travel related bans as a political weapon are not new to the world, however during the last few years we see a worrisome usage to governments in different countries to sanction other countries using their tourism sectors.

Unfortunately, some governments around the world are using ‘safety & security concerns’ as a tool to impose politically motivated travel sanctions and travel bans.

Recent examples we see with China’s travel ban on Chinese tourism to South Korea.

China's National Tourism Administration ordered local travel agencies to stop selling tour packages to South Korea starting March 15th, according to Korea's Tourism Organisation.

South Korea is one of China's most favorite outbound destinations, and the loss of billions of dollars in tourism-related revenues is already felt in Korea.

Some estimates suggest that Beijing's travel ban to Korea could reduce the number of Chinese visitors to South Korea by up to 70%, resulting in billions of dollars in lost tourism-related revenues.

In 2016, it was Russia׳s economic sanctions on Turkey with a huge travel ban on Russian tourism to Turkey resulting in a drop of 90% in number of Russian tourists visiting Turkey and about 3.5 billion USD$ drop in direct tourism revenues for Turkish hotels.

Travel ban issued by the US administration on 7-8 Muslim countries although still not in affect, already casts a shadow over the strong tourism sector in the US.

As I see it, the freedom of travel is a major key to a growing global economy.

According to the World Travel & Tourism Council recent report: 10.2% of global GDP (taking into account direct, indirect and induced impacts) is generated by the travel and tourism industries.

The sector also supported a total of 292 million jobs in 2016, one in ten of all jobs in the world.

Money spent by foreign visitors accounted for 6.6% of total world exports, and almost 30% of total world services exports.

Clearly there are different types of travel bans.

The bans related to security concerns or security conditions could and should be imposed.

One such example we have seen was the travel ban to the Sinai peninsula Egypt at the aftermath of the downing of the Russian airliner on October 31St. 2015.

However, these bans should be limited in scope and time.

Once the necessary security measurements are in place, the ban should and must be lifted.

The use of safety & security concerns as an excuse to issue a politically or economically motivated travel bans is wrong, immoral, unfair and counterproductive.

We all need to move away from our ‘comfort zones’ and come out publicly against such wrongdoings.

The global travel & lodging industry should publicly come out against these general bans. 

Joseph - Yossi - Fischer the CEO of Vision Hospitality & Travel - international lodging & Travel Solutions and a regular contributor to 4Hoteliers.com with exclusive writing and views.

This is strictly an exclusive feature, reprints of this article in any shape or form without prior written approval from 4Hoteliers.com is not permitted.

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