The latest trend in the hospitality and the leisure industry seems to be the Vaccine Tourism, which seems to be gaining ground rapidly in prime destinations such as New Zealand, Maldives and Australia.
For example, this week Norwegian Cruise Lines in an announcement stated that it would be re-launching ships for fully vaccinated passengers, a development would have been unthinkable just a year ago.
Significantly, this trend hints out that successive governments should come out with innovative ways to kick start ailing industries and to virtually do business in the new reality.
Digital Vaccination Passport
Air New Zealand piloted, for the first time, the IATA digital vaccine passport, a way to share immunity details and vaccine history. It is of the view that a digital health pass will soon be as essential to travel as a physical paper passport.
Meanwhile, the Maldives introduced a policy of “vaccine on arrival” for air passengers. The move will offer prospective tourists a holiday on a beach resort with a prospect of bypassing the waiting list for a jab. The Republic’s tourism minister Abdulla Mausoom has been encouraging overseas tourists with his 3Vs strategy, inviting tourists to “visit, vaccinate, and vacation.”
Although using or exploiting Covid-19 vaccines to promote luxury holidays may not be ethnic at a face value, it may in a way reduce disparity in vaccine availability among countries and even within the EU and countries sharing borders, the per centage of population and the immunity varies significantly.
There may be a large numbers of rich travellers in experiencing a delay to their national vaccine programmes and they would be lured into booking for holidays in dream destinations at the same time getting immunised, a proverbial double-bonus on a plane ticket.
There is a strong likelihood of Vaccine tourism gaining ground in the same manner that medical tourism once did – a medical procedure or cosmetic surgery tied up to an overseas trip. This would be a trend that is worthy of emulating. After all, the world should prepare to live in the new reality braving the viruses and other diseases.
