A number one online travel publication is suggesting that while travel to the Caribbean has been impacted by the health travel advisories issued by United States authorities, many Americans were still willing to return to the region. Travel Pulse, considered one of the North America’s leading online travel publications said because the winter months approach, Americans were making travel plans for the traditionally popular vacation spots including many Caribbean islands like Barbados.
Heavily tourism dependent, Barbados has suffered significant economic fallout due to an enormous downturn in tourism arrivals attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, the publication identified that demand for travel in the height winter season was increasing again from pandemic-weary Americans, who also need to escape the cold of the approaching winter.
“While everyone within the US is capable of get vaccinated once they select, this region is scuffling with insufficient access to vaccines,” it observed. It added: “Attributable to ‘very high’ COVID-19 case rates, the US Centres for Disease Controls and Prevention (CDC) has slapped a ‘Level 4: COVID-19 Very High’ advisory on nearly all of Caribbean tourism destinations, which carries a advice that the general public avoid travelling there altogether.”
There are greater than 20 countries within the region which were hit with the strongest category 4 travel warning by the CDC. They include Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cuba, Curaçao, Dominica, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Puerto Rico, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent, Saint Martin, Sint Maarten, and the US Virgin Islands.
Those countries in Category 3, where the CDCC recommends that only fully vaccinated Americans visit include Anguilla, Bonaire, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos, while the Dominican Republic and the Cayman Islands are within the lower Category 2 group of nations.
Following the announcement by the CDC that Barbados was placed on the list of high-risk countries to which Americans mustn’t travel, Minister of Tourism and International Transport Senator Lisa Cummins called the move “counter-productive”. She suggested that the advisory didn’t call for an extra tightening of protocols and weren’t prone to impact Barbados’ arrival numbers or interest within the island as a destination.
Cummins added: “On this instance we’ve got an advisory, nevertheless it doesn’t include additional quarantine measures that may then affect travellers once they come. People still have opportunity to return to Barbados and keep themselves secure and return after having enjoyed their time here in Barbados.” Following the announcement by the CDC, the US Embassy in Barbados suspended the processing of non-immigrant visa services for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean until further notice. (IMC1)
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