14-day quarantine scrapped, exemptions announced

Those travelling to England from more than 50 countries including France, Germany, Spain and Italy will not be required to quarantine from 10 July, the Department for Transport has announced.

The Foreign Office will update its advice against all but essential travel to a number of countries in the coming days.

The 14-day quarantine restrictions were brought into UK law in early June in an attempt to prevent further Covid-19 cases being imported.

The news has brought some relief to travel bodies. The Business Travel Association (BTA) have released a statement saying: “The confirmation of extensive quarantine exemptions is a welcome relief for the business travel sector, which is still at risk of losing one in two jobs in coming months. Further help will be needed.

“The Government has responded positively to the BTA’s representations for vital business destinations to be included, with travel to key cities such as Frankfurt and Paris now possible and much welcomed.

“The BTA has never supported quashing quarantine completely. Safety must remain paramount, and the traffic-light system is a more practical solution to the evolving global situation.”

Joss Croft, CEO of UKinbound, said that English tourism businesses will be “breathing another sigh of relief” following the official Government announcement that arrivals from over 50 countries will no longer need to quarantine from 10 July.

“International visitors to the UK contributed over £28bn to the UK economy in 2019,” said Croft. “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.”

Croft added that there remains a number of key inbound markets that are still excluded, such as the USA, China and countries in the Middle East, and said it was not clear if other UK nations would follow England’s lead. “We are still waiting to hear if the devolved nations will follow suit, and lift quarantine,” he added. “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.”

List of quarantine-free countries