The only way to restart mass foreign travel is issuing Covid passports, suggested a Dubai-based expert.
Describing the new travel documents as “inevitable”, Dubai Airports Chief executive Paul Griffiths said, “ “I don’t think there is an alternative.”
Critics of the new systems argue they discriminate against those who cannot get vaccinated.
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Griffiths believes that the problem is not the vaccine passport and its discrimination. “It’s the need to roll things out and have a proper globally equitable vaccine programme,” he said
He wants numbers using the Dubai hub to rise again after the Covid crisis saw annual passenger through put fall 70% to 25.8 million last year from 86.3 million in 2019:
“We need to get into risk management rather than risk avoidance,” Griffiths highlighted. “I just don’t think the world can survive without that mobility for much longer, certainly socially and economically, but you can understand why countries around the world are being very conservative. The last thing any politician wants is a surge of infection on their turf,” said Griffiths.
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He added: “The city’s been built as a global hub and it’s enabled a tremendous commercial and tourism centre to be developed here in the UAE,” Griffiths reportedly said, referring to the UAE’s economy, which contracted by 6.1% in 2020 amid the global slowdown. “So we are pretty dependent, because at least 35% of GDP is based around the enablement of travel and tourism, so it has a big dramatic effect here.” (AW)
