Destinations sign on to Safe Travels Stamp

More than 275 destinations have adopted the World Travel and Tourism Council's (WTTC) Safe Travels Stamp. A media release from the WTTC said Thailand, Caribbean neighbour Barbados and Cyprus are among the destinations which have adopted it. Lats year the Caribbean Public Health Agency launched the stamp for Healthier Safer Tourism (HST) and the Caribbean Traveler's Health mobile app.

TT's Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Roshan Parasram said then that these tools would go a long way to inspire confidence in potential travellers and facilitate safe travel while boosting the regional tourism market.The travel and entertainment industries have been among the hardest hit by the pandemic. A January Forbes article said the pandemic had cost the global tourism industry US$935 billion. TT, Barbados, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan were also among those using the stamp. The release added that Abu Dhabi, Jersey and French Polynesia had also joined the growing list of destinations to get the global safety and hygiene stamp.

The stamp was launched 12 months ago, the release added. It was developed to help restore travellers' confidence and aimed to revive the gloabl travel and tourism sector. The stamp and its global protocols have been embraced by more than 200 travel and tourism CEOs and many major world tourism groups, it said. WTTC's president and CEO Gloria Guevara was quoted as saying the council wwas delighted that its stamp continued to grow from strength to strength and had been adopted by destinations in all corners of the world.

“From Portugal to Puerto Rico, Sri Lanka to Slovenia, Tunisia to Tobago, our stamp is now recognised around the globe, which is testimony to the hard work which has been put in to make the stamp work for both destinations and holidaymakers," Guevara said. She said the stamp will prove a key component in destination recovery and restoring consumer confidence as the global vaccine rollout picks up and travel restrictions are relaxed.

“The success of the stamp shows the importance of global co-ordination to help rebuild and revive the international travel and tourism sector which has been devastated by the covid19 pandemic.“However, we are finally beginning to step into the new normal of a post-covid world, and we are proud to be leading the way for globally coordinated efforts in recovery,” Guevara said. The release also quoted the Tourism Authority of Thailand's governor Yuthasak Supasorn as saying the authority was delighted WTTC had approved its Thailand Safety and Health Administration (SHA) logo in tandem with the WTTC Safe Travels stamp.

“Together, they share a common objective to ensure that all visitors feel safe, as Thailand continues to open its tourism industry to international travel in the new normal.“The Safe Travels stamp has reaffirmed the Amazing Thailand SHA and serves to further motivate travel-related enterprises in Thailand to maintain their health and safety standards, as the country rebuilds traveller confidence while also protecting the Thai workforce that serves them,” Supasorn said.

The stamp protocols were designed according to guidelines from the World Health Organization (WHO), the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the best practices of its members.