‘Relief’ as travel quarantine relaxed

A step towards making overseas tours more viable is to be put in place from 10 July, with quarantine rules relaxing.

It was previously announced that passengers returning to England from abroad would have to quarantine themselves for 14 days immediately following their arrival in the country due to the coronavirus pandemic. A list of countries has now been published by the government where passengers can return from and not have to go into quarantine once they arrive on these shores as of 10 July. This applies to all travel to England, including via coach.

Joss Croft, CEO, UKinbound, said “English tourism businesses, in the inbound and outbound industry, will be breathing another sigh of relief today following the official Government announcement that arrivals from over 50 countries will no longer need to quarantine from Friday 10 July. International visitors to the UK contributed over £28 billion to the UK economy in 2019 and, although the industry will not be able to contribute this level of revenue in 2020, changing the quarantine rules will allow businesses to hopefully recoup some of this lost revenue. With key source markets opening up earlier than the UK, many of their consumers will already have decided where they will be travelling this year, so it will be a long recovery for inbound tourism.

“There are however a number of very important inbound markets that are still excluded, such as the USA, China and countries in the Middle East. We’re also still waiting to hear if the devolved nations will follow suit, and lift quarantine. The health and safety of visitors of course needs to be the first priority, but the Government needs to understand that the inbound industry will only begin to fully recover when quarantine is removed for all markets and so will need continued financial support.”

The change applies to England, with information for travel into Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland set to be published by the Devolved Administrations.

  • Before visitors arrive in the UK, they must complete a passenger locator form. The details in this document must be presented on arrival in England. This applies to both visitors and UK residents. The form is available here.
  • The full list of countries where returning passengers will no longer be required to quarantine from is available here. The list is to be kept under review and is subject to change, depending on the spread of coronavirus in individual countries.

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