Tag Archives: travel ban

Germany lifts blanket travel warning but only 11 countries ‘open’

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The German government lifted its ‘blanket’ warning against international travel on October 1, but foreign office advice against all but essential travel still excludes all but 11 countries.
The Berlin government will also impose 14-day quarantine restrictions on travellers arriving from most countries from October 15, with early release from self-isolation only for those who test negative for Covid-19 after five days.


Advice against non-essential travel routinely renders travel insurance invalid except where travellers are already abroad when the advice changes.
The German travel industry vowed to campaign against the new restrictions.
However, German health minister Jens Spahn urged people to “avoid unnecessary vacations abroad”.
Speaking on German TV, Spahn said the rising Covid infection rate in Germany involved people returning from holidays and said: “We can learn from this in terms of autumn, winter and Christmas.”

German foreign ministry advice against travel due to Covid does not just cover ‘high risk’ countries but also those considered a lower risk with restrictions of their own.
The government introduced a three-tier, traffic-light system of travel advice as it ended the blanket warning.
This categorises high-risk countries as ‘red’, those with lower rates of infection but restrictions in place as ‘amber’ for ‘wait before travel’, and low risk as ‘green’ signifying a low level of infection but with advice to ‘take special care’.


The ‘red’ category currently applies to 123 countries – including Spain and Belgium – and to parts of an additional 15 countries including most of France, Croatia and Turkey excluding ‘the Turquoise Coast’, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Conway Castle in North Wales.

The ministry also advises against travel to many European cities including Vienna, Amsterdam, Geneva, Budapest, Dublin and Lisbon.
Only nine of the 26 EU member states fall wholly in the green category and two outside the EU – Tunisia and Georgia.
Germany imposed a global travel warning in March but lifted it for most European countries in June.
The government temporarily introduced free Covid tests on arrival for travellers returning from ‘high-risk’ destinations but withdrew this in September because of the pressure on testing facilities when it also reissued warnings for travel in Europe.
Germany’s response to Covid and travel has been hailed in Britain as an example to follow, but from mid-October Berlin’s approach will be similar to the regime the UK government appears to be moving towards.
In the meantime, figures suggest the German travel market has had no better summer than the UK’s.

Two cruise lines regroup after Caribbean setbacks

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The Norwegian Sky in Havana in a 2017 photo.

Norwegian Sky outside Havana Port, Cuba.

Two cruise companies affected by sudden upsets in the Caribbean and Bahamas region are slowly regaining their footing.

For Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NCLH), the big blow was the abrupt end to U.S. cruises to Cuba in June. NCLH had bet heavily on Cuba’s reopening, scheduling not only short cruises on its contemporary Norwegian Cruise Line brand but longer visits by its two premium brands, Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises.

As detailed in a conference call with investors, the U.S. government decision to shutter Cuba with no advance warning hit NCLH third-quarter earnings big-time.

“Given the suddenness of the termination and the lack of lead time we had to make any meaningful fleet redeployment changes, the third quarter bears the largest negative earnings impact from the Cuba travel ban,” said Frank Del Rio, the company’s CEO.

The hit was more than $47 million.

Overnight, high yielding routes to Cuba for the Norwegian brand turned into low-yielding routes to the Bahamas. And several months later came Hurricane Dorian, which made its own dent in NCLH’s earnings through cancelled sailings and reworked itineraries.

Del Rio said Norwegian plans to redeploy half of its Bahamas capacity to higher-yielding areas such as Alaska, the eastern Mediterranean and Asia, and will slowly get out from under the Cuba aftermath.

Even more impacted by Dorian than Norwegian was Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line, whose only destination is the Bahamas.

It suspended its two-day sailings to Grand Bahama for most of September, filling in the time by providing much-need relief and evacuation services.

The silver lining, of sorts, is that Dorian forced Bahamas Paradise into a new market, Nassau, which was not much affected by the storm. It now runs one of its ships from West Palm Beach to Grand Bahama and the other to Nassau.

Bookings for Nassau started slow, said Francis Riley, senior vice president of sales and marketing, but are now on par with those to Grand Bahama. Part of the attraction is the Cruise & Stay program where guest can vacation for two or four nights at one of four Nassau hotels:  Atlantis, The Melia, the Comfort Suites Nassau or the SLS Baha Mar.

Bahamas Paradise has a similar program in place on Grand Bahama with the Lucayan, which has reopened, and the Viva Wyndham, which plans to reopen Dec. 10.

Unlike Norwegian, Bahamas Paradise doesn’t have plans to go elsewhere, and it is busy selling the Bahamas to Canadians and New Yorkers, who have just started getting the frosty temperatures they can look forward to until next spring.