A new government warning advising Canadians to forgo all non-essential international travel in the face of the rapidly spreading omicron variant of COVID-19 has sent the travel industry reeling and made members of the sector livid over measures they contend are not only unnecessary but will cause “unnecessary disruption and chaos.”

Wednesday morning Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged people to be careful as they finish making their Christmas plans this year in light of the new variant. By afternoon, health minister Jean-Yves Duclos went a step further, stating, “To those who were planning to travel I see very clearly, now is not the time to travel.”

He added, “The rapid spread of the Omicron variant on a global scale makes us fear the worst.”

Duclos said the highly transmissible variant is now spreading in Canadian communities, and just about everywhere else in the world, and warned that people who leave the country risk spreading the virus and getting stranded abroad.

Notably, the government had not (at press time) indicated that more stringent border testing protocols would be introduced, although ministers warned that they could still be on the way and did not rule out the possibility of reinstating the requirement for travellers who leave the country for less than 72 hours to complete a molecular COVID-19 test in order to re-enter Canada.

Currently, Canada has banned all foreign nationals who have been in 10 specific African countries in the last 14 days from entering the country to offset the threat of importing omicron cases. That policy should be re-examined, chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam says and Duclos hinted the government may “clarify” that policy soon.

Duclos would not offer advice on domestic “travel,” adding that any travel restrictions within Canada will come from provincial governments.

Members of Canada’s travel sector immediately condemned the government’s move, which comes two months after the previous advisory was lifted, with WestJet CEO Harry Taylor leading the charge against the advisory, predicting that it will lead to “unnecessary disruption and chaos” ahead of the holiday travel season.

“Fully vaccinated Canadians should not be singled out for choosing to take part in a safe activity,” Taylor railed. “Travel bans, restrictions and blanket advisories are devastating to the continued economic recovery of the country and place tens of thousands of recently recalled Canadian travel and tourism jobs at risk.”

Claiming that the government’s warning is “not based on science and data,” and adding that Canada’s travel measures are out of step with border policies in the European Union, United Kingdom and United States, Taylor further challenged the government to “to publicly share the travel-related COVID-19 data that has been used to re-impose the advisory and advice targeted towards fully vaccinated Canadians and the travel and tourism industry.”

“Air travel is the most tested and protected consumer activity in Canada, every person travelling internationally is tested on average twice throughout their travel journey,” he said, noting that Canada has “the only fully-vaccinated air travel sector in the world.”

ACTA says the new advisory will have a “devastating impact” on its 14,000 agents, who depend on holiday travel to bolster business.

David Green, managing director for Canada for G Adventures, observed that “not only is this a setback to our industry as a whole, but it’s a major frustration for travel agents who will now be inundated with calls from panicked travellers looking to cancel or rebook their holidays, when they should be enjoying a well-earned break before heading into their peak selling period in January.”

He added, that, “While all caution must be taken in the interests of public health, recent headlines indicate that boosters are effective against the Omicron variant and the symptoms are mild. As such, today’s announcement… has come as a shock to our industry, which was starting to recover after a successful Black Friday and Cyber Sale period. January traditionally sets agents up for the year ahead with strong sales, but they now face more disruption and turmoil.”

Air Transport Association of Canada CEO John McKenna confirmed that airline customers were already cancelling bookings by the thousands and added that a decline in international trips will prompt a slowdown in regional ones, since the two feed into each other, and that anxiety over the highly transmissible variant will further discourage domestic travel.

“(People) are cancelling because they don’t know what to expect when they come back,” McKenna said, adding, “I think they’re more afraid of the bureaucracy than of omicron.”

The Canadian Travel and Tourism Roundtable, meanwhile, called on the government to refrain from introducing additional blanket, restrictive border and travel measures and to continue to focus on more meaningful interventions to ensure Canadians are protected throughout this pandemic, like testing and vaccination, and stating, “Closing borders and preventing travel is simply not the solution.”

Duclos said, “I know this is difficult for airlines, for travel agencies, for families, for people who haven’t been able to see each other for a long time.”

World view

At the global level, the World Health Organization has previously advised that anyone who is unvaccinated, unwell, or is at higher risk of serious illness or death from COVID-19 should put off travel to areas where omicron is spreading.

However, the WHO also advocates against the implementation of travel and trade restrictions – a position that has prompted IATA Director General Willie Walsh to describe the imposition of travel bans by governments as “ineffective as closing the barn door after the horse has bolted” and instead merely threatening the sector’s recovery and the livelihoods of millions of tourism workers.

“The emergence of the omicron variant (has) panicked many governments into once again restricting or entirely removing the freedom to travel – even though WHO clearly advised that blanket travel bans will not prevent the international spread,” Walsh stated, adding, “The logic of the WHO advice was evident within days of Omicron’s identification in South Africa, with its presence already confirmed in all continents.”

World Travel & Tourism Commission president and CEO Julie Simpson agrees, saying, “Closing borders will not prevent the spread of new variants. The latest variant is increasingly being detected in countries around the world. The way to keep safe is to focus on the vaccination status of individual travellers…”

Olivier Ponti, VP Insights, for Spanish-based ForwardKeys, which uses ticketing data from airlines, hotels, and travel agencies to produce analytics for travel organizations, including the WTTC, confirms that “travel restrictions do have a really have a strong negative impact on bookings.”

And adds that the impact extends not only to short-term excursions, but to trips taken “much later.”

Speaking during a Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association webinar Wednesday attended by Travel Industry Today, Ponti said, “One thing is certain, travel restrictions do succeed in reducing travel to a destination. If you make it really complicated or really impossible to reach a destination, they will not book a destination, or they will cancel their flight.”

Ponti is quick to add, however, that enormous pent-up demand from travellers means that travel warnings are quickly forgotten.

“What you can see, over and over again,” he says, “is that when travel restrictions are lifted there is a real boost in the number of bookings, and a strong rebound to 2019 levels.”

Moreover, he points out, there is also an important difference between advising against and forbidding travel.

“As far we can tell, there is no direct correlation between the rising number of (COVID) cases and declining number of bookings to destinations – meaning that if the government does not decide to close its border, then the willingness to travel is so strong that people will still book their holiday – and I think that is very encouraging for the travel sector.

“If what you do is advise people not to travel, they still travel; but if you forbid them from travelling, you basically kill the market.”