Corona corridors: What's a travel bubble?

NEW DELHI: The civil aviation ministry on Tuesday said it is considering “travel bubbles” or “bilateral bubble arrangement” between India and countries like the US, France,

Germany

and UK amid pressure to resume international air traffic.


So what’s a travel bubble?

Also known as travel bridges or corona corridors, travel bubbles or more specifically,

bilateral bubble arrangement

opens the borders to citizens of select countries and does away with the waiting period for travellers from certain countries where the novel coronavirus has been contained.

So for instance, an arrangement between say Italy and Spain, where Covid-19 has been contained, could see citizens from either country travel between the two nations without being compulsorily quarantined.

It naturally follows that the establishment of a travel bubble between two or more countries depends on the confidence each has in the other to contain the spread of the virus.

According to an Oxford University study, the best time to establish a travel bubble is when both countries "have no more cases". The closest examples of this currently are Australia and

New Zealand

— while the former has 15 new cases, the latter has been Covid-19 free for over two weeks now.

Establishing a travel bubble can have a direct benefit for the travel and tourism industries of both the countries which establish a travel bubble — travel, tourism and hospitality industries have been the worst affected by the travel ban between countries.

In Australia-New Zealand instance, Australians constitute nearly 40% of international arrivals to New Zealand, for whom tourism is the biggest export industry contributing 21% to its forex earnings and 5.8% of its GDP. India's tourism industry too has suffered severely with the international flight ban since the first lockdown and is looking at job losses of 38 million people in the sector.