And. No flights no travel no tourism tens of millions of jobs are at risk because pandemic and his holiday plan so how will tour operators recover and how could you offer a coronavirus free vacation this is inside story. Hello welcome to the program on boots. The Global Tourism industry has all but ground to a halt because of the coronavirus pandemic most International Flights of stopped and Hotel Bookings evaporated as countries closed their borders and imposed lockdowns 100000000 jobs at risk according to the uns World Tourism Organization where countries with foreign infection rates and are planning to ease some of those restrictions its in the hope of encouraging travelers and their cash to venture abroad again well bring in our guests in just a moment 1st this report by the marriage sound its unusually quiet in santa rini the popular greek island is normally full of tourists admiring its white villas and breathtaking scenery but the pandemic has emptied its beaches and shut down the neighbors shops thank you for your cause while once it was full of people full of life now were alone the Tourism Sector employs one in 5 greeks but since march visitors from outside the e. U. Have been barred and travelers from the block are placed in quarantine for 14 days the measures appear to be working with greece recording fewer than 3000 covert 1000 cases and 150 deaths so the government is easing its restrictions it plans to allow International Tourists to come back in july. Hotels can reopen next month but with strict measures like bans on large groups in bars and restaurants and barriers around some lounges. I mean. These constructions you see are not going to be the future for beaches we dont want this but if this is necessary and if this is what People Safety depends on such a construction or any such construction we just want to work we want to get going other countries are looking at ways to reopen that Domestic Tourism the an airport is offering coronavirus tests for travelers willing to pay 200. 00 and the austrian government is considering allowing some cross border travel again. For instance germany has a similar infection right to aus in austria im sure we can find a solution with germany to open the borders in the next few weeks so the people are able to travel again in the summer lithuania latvia and estonia and a similar idea last week for people in those countries to travel freely without being put into quarantine australia or new zealand are considering it as well but will be a long time before countries allow mass tourism again as tour operators adjust to a new reality many hope the sun will soon set on a dark moment for their industry a marriage or 3 the inside story. Lets bring in our panel joining me from colombo is Kimberly Fernando the chairwoman of the Sri Lankan NationalTourism Development or thora t. In athens George Papaconstantinou a former greek minister of finance and a professor at the European UniversityInstitutes School of Trans National governments and in london virginia messina managing director of the world travel and Tourism Council welcome to you all virginia ill start with you one of the priorities when you start working out a path out of this towards recovery what do you look at 1st. Thank you very northern claire think you pretty vacation today and weve obviously i mean weve looked looked at this a different faces so in the media crisis of course the pro is he was looking at the appropriate funding for our Member Companies and so we did a lot of campaigns in not being with with with some of the government just to recognize the importance of our industry which as you might know last year it represented 10. 3 percent of global g. D. P. And 330000000 jobs so thats one in 10 jobs in the planet so we were trying to put obviously bring things into context in terms of the importance of the sector and then try to get the appropriate resources were obviously now trying to look forward and hopefully pro recovery that is going to be mainly split into 2 faces so one things will be before a vaccine becomes available and weve looked at what are the priorities before the this happens and then obviously once that exene is around there will be more confidence so that really the critical phase were looking at is this period where theres no vaccine available where new measures and new protocols need to be integrated for for travelers to have the confidence and the reassurance that that there is still able to to travel or chemically in colombo you suffer these to sunday bombings there was a domestic political crisis you were just coming out of that then the coronavirus hit how do you plan what is your plans to try and move on and get out of this and get tourists back to your island thats about it yes its a devastating impact for sri lanka from the economic and source of point of view however if youve seen this as an opportunity to reset the sri lankan profile and the consumer that are there to it is that get to our country so weve used this opportunity 1st to look at the protocol that were going to have a vitally already done are a guideline for the competition. Sector for the airport as well so weve looked at that and then were also looking at 8 years where we could improve the infrastructure issues that the government could to reform profile the country as it were because i think Going Forward the kind of tourists that would go out there is perhaps the inch every traveler who would look out to a new experience so we out you know our country our island is actually in a sense perfect fourscore it simply because of the pristine beaches the you know everything that we have to offer so we are profiling us is weve got the sick. Protocols sorted now but and weve also opened up our country now it was actually we opened it up today so we are seeing a lot of traction and were already getting requests for new bookings and so on in july and august so thats where we are theres lots of work that were going to go ahead with the promotions as well but more so getting our product mix right to meet the fourscore. Client ok george greece is hoping by june we hear the Prime Minister say to have some tourists coming back in june or july. 90 percent of your tourists come from abroad but most people still cant come to greece how is greece going to start the tourism going again. Well into the starting point for the discussion in greece of course is the fact that tourism accounts directly and indirectly for about 25 percent of g. D. P. So the fact that greece is due to be projected to 4 after 10 percent in 2020 is related very much to the fact that of course the and the projections for tourists arrivals at the moment quite direct to just give you an example of the Athens International airports in april 2001000 had 2000000. 00 passengers in april 2020 had 20000. 00 so were talking about a 99 percent decline so so thats the starting point on the Positive Side of the ledger is the fact that greece is widely seen as one of the countries that managed to face the health aspect of the crisis. Quite well for the time being in terms of a low number of fatalities and a state of decline in infections which put says in a good place to be able to start thinking of the reopening the lockdown has been gradually relaxed and were now looking as of june and july to open up. Hotels 1st year round else then seasonal hotels. And of course the key the key question which has yet to be resolved is the protocols for transport because as you say most about tourism comes from abroad a significant part flies in some country through italy some drive down from the balkans but the biggest chunk comes from transport so we are in the in the process of discussing with European Union botanist to figure out what the protocols are. And but no final announcements have been made some ideas about a 72 hour. Window for having a test before boarding a plane this is all going to be developed in the next few weeks virginny you mentioned that begin to be 2 phases the previous exceed in the post vaccine phase and george mentioned that the protocols that were there working on to work out how we can welcome travelers how do you see the beef prevent seeing states putting out because thats what were going to be stuck with perhaps for at least certainly 12 months or so. Precisely and these protocols are really critical and thats why we have we focused on this so for us public and private club aeration needs to happen and is really paramount in this process because we we have looked at other crises in the past and if you think for example of 911 and how and how that impacted the sector given that it was a crisis originated in one country as opposed to globally as it is in this case and i think the big Lesson Learned from that was the lack of collaboration between governments but also with the private sector so i mean what weve been saying is we really need to learn from that because what happened back then is that governments start imposing their measures based on obviously their intelligence and and their data but there was no coordination whatsoever which really became very difficult for the traveler so you would you would basically be facing different restrictions in Different Countries and with Different Companies so that is what were trying to avoid were hoping that there can be some sort of cohesive approach and thats why. He has been really focusing on on these over the last past weeks weve been talking to the 200 of our members across all the Different Industries so from the Airports Airlines all the way to the tour operators on cruise lines and beyond into their minds. And sector and what were going to do is actually this week were going to be launching some global protocols and that will precisely give us some guidelines according to each industry in terms of what are the whats the baseline what are the recommendations what are the things that need to be in place that will be critical to make sure that that there is that there can still travel safely before this vaccine is available commercially what sort of protocols would you want to introduce in sri lanka you nurse if we had a very low rates of covert. Only 856 year old really dont want to expound so how do you want to be able to welcome people into sri lanka the protocols yes weve actually had bayfield that thankfully. 9 deaths. You know we had we had 9 dates and nor dates from nor medical people got. Past due to this illness. Going forward what were going to do is change the whole process on line we will inform them where theyre. Certified we will have certified accommodation of the would have it would be audited so the client would nor the guests would know. The whole operation in the our port anyway we are now its completely changed after all we obviously the airport our airport was really never closed it was always open for passengers as well as for cargo and even now its open for the sri lankans actually us really. Do a passport holders and sworn about 59000. 00 have requested to come back because they feel more comfortable to come back so we are given 1st preference actually be the increase protocol with regards to the visa application with the necessary testing done 2 weeks before when you arrive the protocol and of course now at the moment all sri lankans when they arrive they they go for 2 week or an time enough or if i sell for tail or a current time facility provided by the government which is of course free of charge so yeah we havent been impacted significantly with who wed 19 in terms of deaths or the infection. I dont know the lankans we have our own sort of indigenous medicine which we are also using myself i use it and work right throughout. So i believe that what we call. Hell of a comma hell over the commies very we have roots and you know all these ingredients we use from ancestor times so these are things that i think we want to shower saw with the word eventually when we come in but with a question with regard to the protocol we are following we are working actually together very very closely with w. H. O. As well as the ministry of health weve actually finalized the guidelines now its given already to the industry and theyre supposed to get back to us with any fine tuning to do by next monday we will be implementing it george greece too has successfully managed to keep a lid on the very worst of the corona Virus Outbreak you dont want it coming back into greece how are you going to manage the desire to get tourists in while stopping the coronavirus breaking out again. Indeed for example there are no cases in the islands at the moment and wed like to keep it that way so there are a number of levels and the government is rolling out a strategy on that 1st is the general. Guidelines for distancing in Public Places where it masks in into markets etc then you have these specific relations for 1001 nations in general but the listening patient procedures cleanliness no hoof it is except for a distance between tables in restaurants the whole package then you go to transport and theyre on Sea Transport there are specific relations on how you clean the pestles what the the crucial when eric cetera and the distance between passengers and finally the most difficult aspect the Sticking Point of course is is transport where one country does by itself is not enough thats where you need International Collaboration to agree to be able to have the same kind of protocols so greece there has 2 tracks one is to proceed more quickly with certain countries that have had in the region that they have had equally good treatment of the crisis so cyprus israel the balkans but even further away such as a strait in new zealand where there might be kind of a safe corridor for tourists coming from those countries and the 2nd is because most of the bulk at tourism comes from europe and the u. S. Is to agree with our European Partners on how exactly you do transport in these times and on the on the greek side the airports of course theyve always been particular controls and those protocols are really there waiting for it to to to agree with the european about what a passenger should have done before boarding the airplane and thats critical and then once theyre here on the islands there will be specific dedicated hospitals in case there is infection for somebody to be quarantined there so that it does not spread so we. Proses ok virginia holidays are of course all about getting away from it all with all these protocols in place wont people just be so put off at the prospect of having to go through all of this hassle that will say im staying at home this year im staying home until this is all sorted out its putting people off isnt it. Well were really i mean thats why the priority is that in all this protocols we do need to have a traveler centric approach so we do need to consider the traveler experience throughout this journey so just until just before this crisis and he had been working on something we were calling the seamless traveler journey which was all about using to knowledge of such as biometrics and facial recognition to make the journeys more there are so for you to be able to almost show up at the passport without i mean at the airport just without even having to show your passport and and so there we were we had been looking at that with different stakeholders and Technology Companies and in reality we dont expect that to change were just were just expecting some additional sort of Health Measures to be integrated into this journey but we want to make sure that that remains a seamless experience now i mean yes companies will need to adapt and they will need to apply different perhaps bigger sanitation measures and and tensing and of course some of important measures with with the staff but were hoping it wont change now were also seeing this in faces so initially we know i mean Domestic Tourism is going to be very relevant because initially perhaps people will be hesitant to getting on an on airplanes but then we expect some sort of interim interim Regional Travel so within europe that would be very beneficial because we expect and people to be able to to at least visit their neighbor countries and then obviously long haul would be would come last and chemically a lot of your tourists to our long haul passengers thats how a lot of your business is based on those coming from europe those coming from china and further afield. How are you going to persuade those people to make those long journeys what is going to be hard enough to travel within europe or within Southeast Asia for example. Yes actually the tourists that we have the big biggest market is from india then u. K. Germany china and these other countries so yes the long haul flights might take longer passengers to come but having said that i mean even today i mean ive got several agents contacting us asking us when their port is open and they are in germany so i dont know i mean we have to wait and see whether these these actually materialize but india for sure there are lots of requests weve got calls about 6 calls today about private jets where the private jets can come in and we confirm that moment the airport is open yes of course we have a separate output now recently set up for private jets so yes long haul may take a little bit longer but i noticed that there was an article the other day some Research Done on the British Public and they seem quite open to traveling so yes i only time will tell whether the long haul flights will travel russia is also another important market which we had lot of long stay guests actually at this time we would all i think including greece and all the other countries we probably would like to have longer stay gets sent to that extent were looking at having his 5 year visa multiple entry which is now only one month which is now extended so we are looking at making 5 years and so yeah we are encouraging people to kind of stay longer. And make it sort of customer friendly to come back. And george do you get a sense in greece of people either. Sick of the sick of the lot down so theyre looking for a chance to escape and go on holiday or are they nervous about taking those steps what is the hope or the view from greece. Well opening up to International Tourism is a very delicate balancing act and the best of governments and the Tourism Industry can do is create the conditions to make people feel safe to travel now whether they do or not of course is a decision that people take we dont expect 2020 to have a significant tourism arrival event after a july or august week we hope to contain some of the damage but we also are conscious of the fact that if we dont do it right. You know the damage may be worse than and then the benefit that you get where were preparing the ground for a better year next year and were hoping that some people if the conditions are right will make the trip in a country that they have seen has dealt with the crisis quite well and has has shown to be serious about it and about it the safety of travelers governments that had varying different ways of how managing the coronaVirus Outbreak with the terms of the lockdown and how strict and not they were its going to be a challenge isnt it to get everybody to agree some sort of global coordinated approach to coming out of it in terms of tourism when they they were so chaotic going into it. Well i mean obviously everyones at different stages of the of the peak as well not as they call it and each government is there collecting their own data and information and making decisions based on that so we fully respect that i think its obvious the for us the priority has been for these governments to recognize the importance that our sector has in the economies and therefore that the impact in travel and tourism i mean we were we were estimating originally for this to 2 i mean we we had estimated at the beginning of the crisis about 50000000 jobs to be at risk only for 2020 now that has actually doubled or more than doubled so we are nearly at over 100000000. 00 jobs that are at risk so that will of course i mean travel and tourism being the backbone of the economy will have a Significant Impact across all or all the economy so we recognize its an important and balancing act now in terms of the poor the nation we have been working very closely with saudi arabia who are chairing the g. 20 this year and we believe the g 20 and play is an Important Role as it has been in previous crises and pulling all these governments together and hopefully coming up with that with with a coordinated approach so around the end of april the minister of tourism actually called it an extraordinary meeting and all the ministers of the g 20 countries where there and they had a sensible conversation obviously they all shared what they were doing in terms of mesure is being a different. Different levels of the peak as i said but also in terms of what theyre doing for the sector so also we hope this could be a platform where these ordination could could happen are out of a very quick last answer for come from you can you just give us a timeline of when you hope to be opening up for Foreign Tourists again what when when can people come back to sri lanka. I believe its going to be it hasnt been done by the looks like a very fit they had with. All right thank you very much thanks to all of our guests and good luck and thanks to. George papaconstantinou and virginia messina and thank you too for watching you can see the program again any time by visiting our website al jazeera dot com and for further discussion go to our Facebook Page facebook dot com forward slash a. J. Inside story you can also join the conversation on twitter we are at a. J. Inside story and. His era when it. Burns with an entire team here in doha and. 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In essence we in the United States have privatized the ultimate Public Function more shadow on aljazeera. Fully back to bill in doha with a look at our main stories on aljazeera the death toll from call that 19 in the United States has now surpassed 80000 by President Donald Trump says america is now on truck to defeat the virus. This afternoon i am announcing that my administration is good and it weve got this all approved its all done is sending 1000000000 dollars to americas states territories and drugs so this is all been approved weve got that done completed the money is going out this major investment will