Tour Operators Embrace Vaccine Mandates While Grappling With COVID-Induced Changes

As countries and businesses around the world begin to adopt vaccine mandates, tour operators have embraced the new measures and many even have mandates of their own. “As a company overall, we are pro-vaccine,” said Steve Born, the chief marketing officer at the Globus family of brands. Globus announced a vaccine requirement on 16AUG for trips through MAR 2022. For tour operators, travellers getting vaccinated is also a matter of convenience. Melissa DaSilva, the U.S. President of Trafalgar, Costsaver, Brendan Vacations and Contiki says that unvaccinated travellers would have to take COVID-19 tests very frequently to get to certain destinations, which creates a prohibitive experience for both the traveller and the operator. Before requirements, Contiki CEO Adam Armstrong noted a time when a guest in Italy could not attend a guided tour of the Colosseum in Rome because their test result expired a few hours earlier. As a result, travellers have also supported vaccine requirements.