It's fairly far down the article but it would seem as if the need for a passport given that, according to the article, most people in the EU don't have passports would be a pretty big stumbling block.<p>I also imagine that the more border crossing is involved (and, yes, travel between EU countries is "crossing borders" but in a sense less so than traveling to non-EU countries), the more hesitant people are likely to be all other things being equal. I probably still wouldn't travel from the US to Europe at the moment.
> For 2021, national tourist board Visit Britain has forecast that visitor numbers will be lower even than in 2020, when travel restrictions were at their highest.<p>Not sure how they evaluated the travel restrictions, but in 2020 there were travel corridors between many European countries including the UK, while for most of 2021 to enter the UK there were required PCR tests (usually 3) and home quarantine. 2021 restrictions definitely felt more strict, at least in the summer.<p>Restrictions for arrivals were only lifted for the vaccinated in the autumn.
This reads like a propaganda piece.<p>> How the UK became the sick man of European tourism<p>The pattern 'X is the sick man of Y' specifically refers to 'Sick man of Asia' [1]. It's often used as an insult to Chinese people, but an insult they often like to use against other Countries.<p>Later in the article you then see lots of references to Chinese people not wanting to visit the UK. It sounds like the author spoke to the 'travel experts' (e.g. Marcus Lee, CEO of China Travel Online) and then wrote this article. The truth is, the UK and neighbouring Countries are all extremely close to getting back to normality in spite of a rise in cases.<p>This is China redirecting from the fact that they have a much larger tourism issue - they have essentially banned all foreigners from entering. Even if you could enter, the CCP have mounted an effective campaign to blame COVID on foreign origins (such as pretty much any bio-research lab in the US), and there is <i>very</i> large anti-foreign sentiment among the population.<p>If you want to see somewhere crippled by lack of tourism, look no further than Macau which reportedly had 50.2% of their GDP generated by travel and tourism in 2019 [2].<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sick_man_of_Asia" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sick_man_of_Asia</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1100368/countries-highest-gdp-travel-tourism/" rel="nofollow">https://www.statista.com/statistics/1100368/countries-highes...</a>
Before the Covid, the requirements for British visa (for those nationals who need it) were prohibitive. It was quite expensive and came with a lot of paperwork, 4-5 times over what Schengen visa application took.<p>I understand that UK faced great migrational pressure, but they also ended up turning away potential tourists.<p>Probably did not matter in 2019 when London was a tourism crown jewel. But, it probably matters now.
I mean, you might have wanted to have a plan for your bad food and worse weather before leaving the place that has those things.<p>All to make sure a couple people’s 86 karat diamonds can stay safely in their vaults.<p><a href="https://youtu.be/bRBZw4IU8rg" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/bRBZw4IU8rg</a>