The Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (Dubai Tourism) is ramping up its international marketing campaign to drive further awareness of Dubai as a must-visit destination with a focus on next month’s Expo 2020 Dubai.

At a series of in-person networking events held last week in the key markets of UK, Russia and the United States, Dubai Tourism shared its positive industry outlook with partners and leading media organisations.

Issam Kazim, Chief Executive Officer, Dubai Tourism, commented: “Aligned with the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, and Ruler of Dubai, we have increased our global marketing activities to reinforce the message that Dubai has completely regained its vibrancy and is the first choice destination for global travellers.”

“As Dubai continues to safely welcome international tourists, we are pleased to engage with the media and our partners in key markets in cooperation with Expo 2020 to raise awareness of the region’s first World Expo and the unique destination proposition. We received encouraging feedback from participants at the recent engagements overseas, as we intensify efforts to attract more visitors from all of our strategic markets that are open. With the industry registering steady growth in the first seven months of 2021, we are confident that together with our partners we can collectively leverage the prevailing optimism to further accelerate momentum during this landmark year of Expo 2020 and the UAE Golden Jubilee,” he added.

Kazim briefed the media and travel trade in Russia on September 2 on the various initiatives taken by Dubai in leading the global tourism recovery.

At this meeting, Sumathi Ramanathan, Vice President, Market Strategy & Sales, Expo 2020 provided insights into the mega event.

Kazim also virtually joined a media breakfast hosted by Dubai Tourism in London on 8 September, the first in-person meeting to be held in the UK market since the start of the pandemic.

Another promotional event was hosted in New York on September 8 that featured a pre-recorded speech by the Dubai Tourism CEO, and a live presentation by Matthew Asada, Deputy Commissioner General for the USA Pavilion, Expo 2020.

Attendees including representatives from the media and travel trade, also had an opportunity to watch a screening of the third trailer of Dubai Presents, the latest global campaign featuring Hollywood stars Jessica Alba and Zac Efron that was produced to showcase the exceptional experiences that visitors can enjoy during their stay in Dubai.

Source: Khaleej Times

The African Union’s health watchdog Thursday warned that Britain’s pandemic travel restrictions could make people across the continent more reluctant to get vaccinated.

Under the restrictions, Britain only recognises vaccines administered in a few countries.

For most of the world, and all of Africa, Britain will not recognise locally-administered vaccines — even if the jabs came from Britain.

“If you send us vaccines and you say, ‘we don’t recognise those vaccines’, it sends a very challenging message for us,” said John Nkengasong, head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).

That is “a message that creates confusion within our population… creating more reticence, reluctance for people to receive vaccines,” he told a weekly news conference.

Under the rules that take effect on October 4, travellers arriving into the UK from so-called “red” listed countries are required to quarantine in government-approved hotels even if they are vaccinated.

Travellers from countries not on the red list still face tougher restrictions, including additional testing and home isolation. 

“We regret that the UK will take this position, and we really will call on them to review this,” Nkengasong said. 

Britain has been an active donor of coronavirus vaccines to Africa, sending more than five million shots to Africa, according to UN data.

Nkengasong feared that Africans will question why they should take vaccines, when some European countries are refusing to recognise those vaccines.

“That is clearly not acceptable,” he said. “We should be raising our voices against such behaviours, that is not what we need for this pandemic.”

The UK approach creates a stigma around locally administered vaccines, he said, and “will lead to eventually harming efforts of what we are doing in Africa”.

Some African countries are facing a Covid-19 resurgence as the continent lags in the global vaccination drive, with just four percent of its 1.3-billion population fully innoculated.

Morocco, South Africa, Egypt, Algeria, and Tunisia have administered the most doses. Eritrea and Burundi are the two African countries still to roll out vaccination, according to Africa CDC.

Africa has so far reported more than eight million Covid-19 cases, the equivalent of around 3.6 percent of total global infections. 

More than 207,000 of the cases have been fatal, or 4.4 percent of global virus death toll.

Source: The East African

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has urged the Kenyan government to lower the USD80 PCR cost of COVID-19 PCR tests which is among the highest in Africa in order to encourage more air travel.

Through a statement, the association noted that the recovery of the aviation sector is stalling amid the COVID-19 pandemic and requires support.

Kamil Al Awadhi, IATA’s Regional Vice President for Africa and the Middle East noted that expensive charges and inconsistent requirements for PCR tests undermine confidence in air travel.

“Kenya’s air transport recovery is stalling and requires ongoing support. Among the interventions, we are urging Kenya’s government to reduce the cost of PCR tests for travelers, which, at roughly USD80 each, is significantly higher than the average in Africa, we need a restart that is affordable for all,” he said.

Alternatively, IATA noted that the air transport and tourism sectors could permit the use of more cost-effective antigen tests as a substitute.

Other mechanisms proposed by IATA include the digitization of health certificates which it said will be essential to avoid queuing and crowding at the airports.

“As passenger numbers increase in the recovery, digitally managing travel health credentials will be essential to avoid queuing and crowding airports,” the statement read in part.

In addition, IATA noted that full implementation of African Union’s Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) across the continent would generate significant economic benefits for Kenya especially job creation.

“Pre-pandemic, SAATM was intended to unlock travel within the continent. Post-pandemic it will provide an even more important economic boost, namely creating 39,000 new jobs and adding US$201 million to the country’s GDP,” IATA added.

Airline passenger traffic to, from, and within Kenya fell by 52 percent in June 2021 vs June 2019 while for the first half of 2021, passenger volumes declined by 54.2 percent as compared to the first half of 2019.

“The next two years should see a stronger recovery as Kenya’s vaccination rate improves and more countries reopen their borders to the country,” IATA added.

Source: Capital Business

The UK is working with Kenya to approve Covid-19 vaccine certificate issued by Kenyan officials.

There had been fears that new British travel rules would not allow Kenyans into the UK despite getting the recommended Covid 19 jabs.

These new rules, which were unveiled by Britain last week on Friday, become effective today.

Wednesday, British High Commissioner to Kenya Jane Mariott Howe and Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe said in a joint statement that they are establishing a system to mutually recognise each other’s vaccine certificates.

They, however said the vaccine passport programme for travel could take time, meaning Kenyan travellers to the UK would have to wait longer to benefit from the system.

“At present, neither country has completed the process of recognising the other country’s vaccine certificates,” said Ms Howe and Kagwe in a joint statement.

“We are working as fast as possible to ensure this happens so travel is as smooth as possible for our peoples.”

Both officials, however maintained jabs administered in Kenya are recognised in the UK.

“There has been significant public concern about the issue of vaccine certification. We want to make it clear that both the UK and Kenya recognise vaccines administered in both countries: Oxford-AstraZeneca, Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson. It is false to state that vaccines administered in either country are ‘unapproved’,” they said.

Under the new British rules, only people who have got both shots of a double dose vaccine such as AstraZeneca, Pfizer or Moderna or the single shot Janssen vaccine “under an approved vaccination programme” will be considered fully vaccinated.

Under the rules, travellers from Kenya would now be allowed into the UK in what has been touted as a fresh boost for tourism, which is in peak season.

Source: Business Daily

The business travel and group meeting sector of the U.S. economy in 2020 missed out on $211 billion in revenue because of the pandemic and will miss out on plenty more in the coming years, according to a new U.S. Travel Association and Tourism Economics projection. 

“Before we get whole” in 2024, “we will have lost $522 billion in spending,” said Tourism Economics president Adam Sacks during a U.S. Travel Association press conference Wednesday. He added that international business travel losses would add another $77 billion to the total.

The transient travel and group sector of the economy in 2019 generated $270 billion in direct travel spending, supporting 4 million U.S. jobs, according to U.S. Travel.

While there were promising strides made toward recovery throughout the spring and summer during the Covid-19 vaccine rollouts, Sacks noted that the intent to return to business travel has taken a hit in recent weeks. Based on Global Business Travel Association surveys, about 65 precent of U.S. companies are conducting domestic business travel. Of the rest, 68 percent in July planned to resume travel within one to three months but by August, that percentage fell to 35 percent as Covid-19 cases started to rise again and the delta variant spread.

His remarks were part of the U.S. Travel Association’s pitch for the return of business travel and meetings and events, aimed to demonstrate that they could be and have been resumed safely, and that they were instrumental to the recovery of the U.S. economy. 

Resuming business travel and meetings “will greatly accelerate America’s economic recovery and get businesses moving forward again in a profitable way,” said U.S. Travel president and CEO Roger Dow, criticizing what he characterized as a media focus on event cancellations even as in-person meetings now are safely taking place. “Every piece of evidence that we’re seeing from the scientific and academic community tells us that, with the right practices in place, the traveling workforce and organizers of professional events can get back to the business of reconnecting with clients and colleagues.”

Dow cited research from Mayo Clinic that showed the risk of a person becoming infected with Covid-19 boarding a flight from the U.S. to the U.K. in which passengers were tested for Covid-19 beforehand is one out of 10,000. That study also found that the risk of an infected passenger transmitting the virus to another passenger on a Covid-tested flight from the U.K. to the U.S. was one out of 1 million passengers. 

Dow also noted that “lockdowns and restrictions are no longer protecting us from the disease,” he said. “Vaccines are. We are 100 percent behind encouraging all that are eligible to get the vaccine. It’s the fastest path to normalcy for all.”

Still, U.S. Travel earlier this week indicated that it does not support mandatory vaccination requirements for domestic travel. Dow said such mandates are extraordinarily difficult to put in place, then cited the challenge during the past 11 years of trying to get the U.S. Real ID in use. “The other challenge is you have upwards of 65 percent of the population vaccinated and 35 percent to 40 percent that for some reason may not be able to be vaccinated but they are willing to do a Covid test and show that when they walk in the door, they are Covid-free,” he said. “For international travel, we are comfortable with having people coming into the country to have a vaccine if that is the way we start travel,” Dow continued. “The meetings and conventions industry has taken the protocols, we have the ability to know who is coming in the door, what their status is, and if we do not bring back these meetings, it’s not just the hotels and convention centers, but it’s all the things that happen with meetings, it’s adult education, it’s learning best practices, it’s selling American products. And all of those things are so critical to our economy and our communities.”

LONDON (Reuters) -The British government will on Friday consider easing England’s COVID-19 rules for international travel, a late-season boost for airlines, holiday and tourism companies which say they will not survive another winter of onerous rules and red tape.

While Europe has relaxed travel restrictions for the fully vaccinated, expensive COVID-19 testing requirements remain in place for fully vaccinated arrivals into Britain, preventing a travel recovery as the tougher winter period nears.

But a rule change could be announced later on Friday.

“The COVID sub-committee of cabinet that decides these things will be considering that probably later today,” Agriculture Secretary George Eustice told Sky News.

Airports, airlines and travel companies have warned the government of more job losses if it does not scrap the private testing and so-called traffic light system which ranks destinations as green, amber and red.

“There are hundreds of businesses out there who will not survive this winter unless changes are made,” TUI UK managing director Andrew Flintham told Sky News on Friday.

According to reports, the government will remove the requirement for fully vaccinated travellers to take a lateral flow test before departing their destination and a costly PCR test on their return into Britain, which can add hundreds of pounds per person to a trip.

Ministers will also simplify the destination categories into either low or high risk, scrapping amber, reported the Times newspaper, with many countries, including popular destination Turkey, expected to be removed from the high risk red list.

Flintham said any new system would be better than the current set-up.

“It will improve if we move anywhere away from the draconian measures that we really are using at the moment,” he said.

Data shows that Britain’s recovery is lagging. UK flights were down 39% compared to pre-pandemic levels for the two weeks to early Sept. 6, while France, Spain and Italy were down between 24-28%, according to Eurocontrol.

On Britain’s red list there are currently 62 countries, a designation that requires 11 nights in a quarantine hotel at a cost of more than 2000 pounds. Quarantine hotels are expected to remain in place for red list arrivals.

Any change to the travel rules will apply to England, but devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland could later follow suit. More than 135,000 people in Britain have died in the pandemic.

($1 = 0.7247 pounds)

(Reporting by Costas Pitas, Guy Faulconbridge and Sarah Young, Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Copyright 2021 Thomson Reuters.

Uganda Airlines (UR, Entebbe/Kampala) is to debut its first intercontinental flights – to Dubai Int’l – on October 1, 2021, using its pair of A330-800Ns.

According to its social media posts, the flight from Entebbe/Kampala will take place three times weekly. Flight UR444 is scheduled to depart Mondays, Fridays, and Saturdays, according to the ch-aviation schedules module. It has been timed ahead of the start of the World Expo hosted by Dubai from October 1, 2021, to March 31, 2022.

Acting chief executive Jennifer Bamuturaki previously said the target market would be business travellers and migrant workers travelling to the Middle East.

It will be the airline’s first commercial flight out of Africa. Initially planned for July 16, 2021, the inaugural flight was twice rescheduled due to delays caused by COVID-19 travel restrictions and regulatory delays in the certification of the two A330s. They were delivered from Airbus in December 2020 and January 2021 respectively and were supposed to have entered international service in March 2021. As reported, Uganda Airlines eventually managed to add the two A330-800Ns – 5X-CRN (msn 1979) and 5X-NIL (msn 1977) – to its Air Operator’s Certificate (AOC) in August 2021, allowing it to plan for flights to Dubai, to be followed by services to London Heathrow, Mumbai Int’l, and Guangzhou. Bamuturaki previously said the airline is hoping to start flights to London in November 2021, pending its removal from the UK COVID-19 red list.

The state-owned carrier currently serves 10 regional cross-border routes including Bujumbura in Burundi; Dar es Salaam, Kilimanjaro, and Zanzibar in Tanzania; Johannesburg O.R. Tambo in South Africa; Kinshasa N’Djili in the DRC, Mogadishu in Somalia; and Mombasa and Nairobi Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya, according to ch-aviation schedules data.

The four-year-old airline was wracked by controversy earlier this year when its Board and management team, including former chief executive Cornwell Muleya, were removed from office amid allegations of mismanagement and corruption. Amongst the allegations were that pilots with less than 500 flying hours on the airline’s four CRJ900LRs were being trained to fly the two A330s.

Source: Ch-aviation

South African Airways will need a more modern fleet to be competitive on routes outside its home continent following the Covid-19 crisis, according to interim CEO Thomas Kgokolo. 

The state-owned airline used to generate revenue on trips to cities such as London and Frankfurt, but its aging Airbus SE planes have prohibitive operating costs, he said in a panel discussion on Wednesday.

“If we get the right fleet for those particular trips we should be able to minimize costs and become competitive,” Kgokolo said. 

SAA is set to restart operations next week after emerging from bankruptcy proceedings, about 18 months after the fleet was grounded at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Flights are set to operate from Johannesburg to Cape Town, plus African capitals Accra, Kinshasa, Harare, Lusaka and Maputo.

The carrier sees high demand on routes to cities elsewhere on the continent, Kgokolo said, as fewer competitors operate those trips. Early booking figures indicate planes may be as much as 75% full, he said. Routes anywhere else will be complicated by ongoing travel restrictions.

Ownership Transfer

The government agreed to transfer a majority stake in the carrier to a local jet-leasing company and private-equity firm in June, though the consortium has yet to complete the transaction more than three months later.

It’s still not a done deal, Kgokolo said. 

“We’re done with due diligence, and negotiations are taking place on the share purchase agreement,” the CEO said. “It can be complex and take time.” 

The group comprising Global Airways, which owns domestic airline Lift, and Harith General Partners has pledged to invest as much as R3.5 billion over the next three years. For now, SAA is solvent, after administrators reduced its workforce by almost 80% and secured a deal with creditors.

SAA currently has an eight-aircraft fleet, Ch-aviation reported last month, made up of five original-generation Airbus A320-series narrow-bodies, an A330 wide-body, and a pair of thirsty four-engine A340s.

Source: Fin24

The tourism industry is eyeing the government’s push to vaccinate 67% of adult South Africans by December as a key point in reopening international travel for the country, says South African Tourism chief executive Sthembiso Dlamini.

Dlamini told radio station 702 that international travellers are far more likely to travel to a country with a high proportion of its population vaccinated. She added that countries with a hypothetical “herd immunity” are far more likely to see a tourism boost.

“All of us are looking us towards the 67% of the adult population having been boosted by December. I think that will be such a big confidence boost for international destinations.” The reality is that vaccination plays a huge role in the sector’s recovery, she said.

“It is frustrating to hear fake news on what the vaccine can or cannot do. I would encourage people to leave it to the professionals, but also to go and vaccinate.”

Health minister Dr Joe Phaahla said on Friday (10 September) that South Africa will need to reach another 18 million more adults to achieve a 70% coverage of the adult population by December.

In a national address on Sunday evening, president Cyril Ramaphosa said that over a quarter of all adult South Africans have received at least one vaccine dose and more than seven million people are fully vaccinated.

“In the Eastern Cape, Limpopo and the Western Cape, more than one in five adults is now fully vaccinated. The total number of vaccine doses administered in the country now stands at 14.6 million doses,” he said.

“We are now administering a million doses every four to five days. Government has secured sufficient vaccines to vaccinate the entire adult population, and the supply of vaccines is no longer a constraint.”

However, Ramaphosa said that the country needs to do much more to reach its intended vaccination targets.

“While everyone aged 18 years and older is eligible to be vaccinated, we are concentrating our efforts and resources on those over 60 years of age and those with co-morbidities. To date, over 57% of persons over 60 years of age have been vaccinated. This is a great achievement, but we need to reach them all.

“We are finding that more women than men are coming forward to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Although the numbers are improving, men are still slow in coming forward to be vaccinated.”

Source: Businesstech

Britain will today decide whether to lift the ban on travellers from Kenya entering the United Kingdom in its latest travel review.

Up to 24 countries, including Kenya, South Africa and Egypt, could be moved from the Red to the Green travel list this week, said several media outlets in the UK.

Travellers arriving in the UK from countries on the Red List will be denied entry while returning Britons must submit to 10 days of mandatory quarantine in hotels.

People coming from Green List countries don’t have to quarantine and have to provide evidence of two negative Covid tests — one before returning to the UK and one on day two.

“We are finally hopeful that the UK will remove Kenya from the ‘Red List’ to the ‘Green List’ tomorrow (today),” said Patrick Amoth, director general at the Ministry of Health in a phone interview.

Travellers from Kenya were banned from entering the UK in April following the spread of the highly contagious Covid-19 Delta variant in the country, dealing a blow to the tourism sector.

The UK has segmented countries into green, amber and red lists, each carrying different degrees of restrictions for arrivals back to the UK.

It is expected to announce changes to the UK traffic light system today in the latest review, amid reports the regime could be scrapped altogether by next month.

“With no new variants of concern since early May, and with the UK having higher levels of Delta infection than most other countries, there is no reason to keep so many countries on the Red List,” Paul Charles, CEO of the PC Agency travel consultancy, was quoted in the British press saying.

The ban on Kenyan travellers came amid fears that the highly contagious Covid-19 Delta variant may spark the fourth wave of infections in Kenya.

Dr Amoth said Kenya has recorded a decline in Covid-19 infections while the number of admissions in health facilities are also falling.

The positivity rate — the proportion of tests coming back positive — climbed sharply by a double-digit from July, raising concerns among health officials.

The rate has dropped from 14.5 percent in August 15 to seven percent yesterday as the government steps up testing and vaccination.

In Kenya, 838,565 people have been fully vaccinated up from 746,267 in August 14 while the number of those who have received the first jab has jumped to 3.19 million from two million over the same period.

The country has received several vaccine donations, including from the UK, and has also procured some, with a target of inoculating 10 million Kenyans by next Christmas.

“We have vaccinated more people compared to when we were placed on the ‘Red List’. Our genomic surveillance and sequencing is also up — so we will be able to pick up any variant in circulation which is of concern,” said Dr Amoth.

Kenya relaxed punitive requirements imposed on British citizens, which required them to undergo 14 days of isolation before entering the country.

In the mid-June review, the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority said British nationals and non-citizens travelling through London would be required to self-isolate for only seven days.

A decision to remove Kenya from England’s “Red List” will boost the East African nation’s tourism industry that earned Sh91.7 billion last year from Sh163.6 billion in 2019 as the coronavirus pandemic hit one of its biggest foreign exchange-earners.

Britain is one of Kenya’s main trading partners and in 2020 accounted for the fourth largest arrivals through Jomo Kenyatta International Airport with the 49,828 accounting for 8.8 percent of all visitors to the country.

Tourist arrivals from the UK stood at 16,264 in the first half of this year from 42,341 in similar period last year.

Source: Business Daily