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UPDATE: US to lift travel ban for vaccinated Europeans on November 8th

Fully vaccinated travellers from Europe will finally be able to visit the US from November 8th the White House announced on Friday.

Published: 20 September 2021 17:19 CEST
Updated: 15 October 2021 17:19 CEST
UPDATE: US to lift travel ban for vaccinated Europeans on November 8th
Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP
The United States announced on Friday it will lift Covid travel bans on all passengers from November 8th if they are fully vaccinated and undergo testing and contact tracing.

“The new US policy on travel that will require foreign travellers to the US to be fully vaccinated, will enter into force on November 8th,” the White House said in statement.

The easing of travel restrictions, imposed 18 months ago by Donald Trump as the Covid-19 pandemic first erupted, marks a significant shift by Biden and answers a major demand from European allies at a time of strained diplomatic relations.

Effectively the change means vaccinated travellers from Europe will be able to once again visit the US.

US nationals living in Europe and their close family members had been able to travel home across the Atlantic despite the ban but the strict rules had caused misery for many.

The initial announcement that travel restrictions would be eased was made in September and was greeted warmly in Europe.

German vice-chancellor Olaf Scholz tweeted: “Great news – for German and European investments, our exports and transatlantic relations” while the Air France chief described it as “great news”.

European countries have long since opened their borders to vaccinated American tourists, but despite diplomatic pressure in recent months the government in Washington had refused to reciprocate the move until now.

At the end of August the EU removed the US from its travel safe list. Following this move several European countries banned unvaccinated travellers from the US.

Member comments

  2. Sad thing is now it’s paradoxically actually easier for Europeans to travel than Americans. They have the luxury of testing BEFORE they leave home. If positive, stay home. We Americans who miss Italy have to risk testing positive while we’re overseas which is a luxury only the most priveleged can afford. Us plebs can’t risk having to add on 10 more days in a quarantine room to our trips. It’s actually easier for Americans to get into Europe than get home. Even while the US is one of the worst countries in the world for Delta many European countries will let us in just showing the CDC card. If someone can explain how this makes any sense I’d love to hear it. It’s extremely frustrating and also detrimental to the vaccine effort in the US. Either the vaccines work or they don’t but the policy of forcing vaccinated to test before returning home makes it look like they don’t. Stupid stupid stupid stupid.

    1. Agreed. Going to France was easy – I just showed that I was fully vaccinated. I came back to the US from Paris last week – from a country that is over 85% vaccinated to my own country that isn’t even 60% yet, but I had to get a negative test in Paris first. Crazy.

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TRAVEL NEWS

Hotel prices in Norway’s major cities see sharp rise

The price of a hotel room in Norway is now up to almost 30 percent higher compared to 2020, a new analysis has found.

Published: 22 March 2023 12:52 CET
Hotel prices in Norway’s major cities see sharp rise

New figures from the Benchmarking Alliance show that hotels in Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, Stavanger and Tromsø have increased massively compared to before the outbreak of the pandemic, financial newspaper Dagens Næringlsiv (DN) reports.

Hotel prices in Oslo rose the sharpest, increasing by 27.5 percent over the past few years. Meanwhile, the cost of a room in all five cities measured had increased by over 20 percent.

Tromsø, a popular destination for dog sledging and the Northern Lights, is the most expensive place to book a room. Booking a hotel with breakfast costs about 2,1000 kroner, including VAT, a night.

A hotel stay in Oslo costs an average of 1,232 kroner per night without breakfast or a 12 percent VAT charge. Rooms in Stavanger cost 1,207 kroner, while a bed in Trondheim was slightly cheaper at 1,183 kroner per night.

The higher costs come despite the fact that the occupancy rate, the number of booked rooms in hotels, has fallen since 2020. The only city to see increased demand in hotel stays was Bergen, which was also the cheapest out of Norway’s big cities to book a hotel room in. A room in Bergen costs 1,076 kroner a night on average.

“Prices are on the rise, and tourism is on the way back. And in the exclusive segment, we have fantastic growth. In particular, we see that the increase from the American market, helped by a very strong dollar, adds extra fuel to the fire. The weak Norwegian krone means that the exclusive products Norway has to offer to appear reasonable compared to other countries where price increases have been much higher. So even though hotel prices have increased quite a bit in Norway, there are many indications that we have even more to go on in terms of prices,” Kjetil Smørås who owns the De Bergenske hotel chain, which includes hotels such as Bergen Børs, Zander K and Grand Hotel Terminus, told DN.

Kristin Krohn Devold, managing director of the largest employer organisation for the hotel and tourism sector, NHO Reiseliv, said that the increased prices didn’t translate to higher profits. Instead, hotels were increasing prices to keep up with increased costs, he argued.

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