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Thursday Apr 25, 2024
Monday, 10 August 2020 02:02 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Popular holiday destinations Sri Lanka and Grenada are among the latest destinations to begin using the world’s first-ever global safety and hygiene stamp, launched recently by the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC).
The growing list of endorsements have come from many major holiday and city destinations around the world, with the holiday destinations of Sri Lanka and Grenada joining other summer sun destinations such as the ever-popular Alicante and Benidorm in Spain. Eswatini, the popular wildlife and safari destination in Southern Africa, joins a growing list of African nations to adopt ‘Safe Travels’, including Rwanda and Tanzania.
WTTC, which represents the global Travel and Tourism private sector, created the Safe Travels stamp to allow travellers to identify destinations and businesses around the world which have adopted the global standardised health and hygiene protocols.
The United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) has welcomed the WTTC Safe Travels stamp, which place the safety and hygiene of travellers as top priority.
WTTC President and CEO Gloria Guevara said: “Our Safe Travels stamp continues to be a great success and we are thrilled to see even more popular countries and destinations adopt our global health and hygiene protocols.
“The WTTC Safe Travels stamp has had astounding success since its launch. This shows the importance of the initiative not only to countries and destinations, but also, crucially, to travellers and the 330 million people around the world whose livelihoods depend on the Travel and Tourism sector.
“The stamp represents a critical step in rebuilding consumer confidence in Travel and Tourism and allowing travellers to rest easy knowing that enhanced standards of hygiene are in place and they can once again experience ‘Safe Travels’.”
Since the launch of the WTTC Safe Travels stamp, destination countries and cities, around the world have now adopted WTTC’s new protocols, including holiday heavyweights such as Portugal, Dubai, Egypt and Turkey.
As part of its Safe Travels protocols, these worldwide measures provide consistency and guidance to travel providers and travellers about the new approach to health, hygiene, deep cleansing and physical distancing, in the ‘new normal’ of a COVID-19 world.
The protocols were devised following the experience of WTTC members dealing with COVID-19 and based on guidelines from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
According to WTTC’s 2020 Economic Impact Report, during 2019, Travel and Tourism was responsible for one in 10 jobs (330 million total), making a 10.3% contribution to global GDP and generating one in four of all new jobs.
