Chennai, July 5(BPNS)
The Tour operators association of Tamil Nadu are of the opinion that vaccination is the key to increase the flow of travelers from the state to foreign destinations as most of the countries insist on a vaccination certificate to allow passengers into their territories.
Shuhaib Mohammed, an office-bearer of the Tamil Nadu Tour operators association while speaking to BPNS said, “Enquires are pouring into almost all agencies regarding leisure travels but vaccination is an important factor without which travel is impossible. Most of the countries are now insisting on the vaccination certificate to allow entry.”
Enquires, according to tour agents are mostly for Switzerland which is a popular honeymoon destination and Russia. Both these countries have commenced issuing visas to travelers who have taken both jabs.
Muralikrishnan, an engineer with Ashok Leyland while speaking to BPNS said, “My daughter who was recently married want to travel to Switzerland as we had to conduct a low profile marriage for her. Now Switzerland has opened issuing visas and I have contacted a popular travel agent in Chennai for the travel of my daughter and her husband.”
Maldives are also allowing travel to Indian travelers but need only a negative RT- PCR test report. However, travel operators said that the Maldives is now expensive as most of the resorts that are allowing passengers are high end with five-star facilities and will be charged accordingly.
The absence of a Standardised Covid -19 protocol in different countries for travelers from India has also resulted in a reduced enthusiasm for people who intend to travel abroad. Another major issue being faced by travelers and tour operators is the travel ban in the UAE as most international travelers have a stopover in Dubai. With the UAE issuing strict guidelines and allowing only UAE citizens and those with gold visas into their territory, the travelers will feel the heat as most of the international flights have connection flights from Dubai, UAE.
Rajesh Vasudevan of Precision travels of India while speaking to BPNS said, “ Even though there are direct flights to Paris from Chennai, France is not allowing Indian travelers to transit even after the second vaccination. This is the issue for passengers to Switzerland as there are no direct flights from Chennai and has to take transit from Paris.”
