Italy is being removed from the UK’s travel corridor in a fresh blow to holidaymakers who will have to quarantine for a fortnight on their return from the country. In a move revealed earlier by the Guardian, Italy – which this week recorded its highest ever daily tally of Covid-19 cases – is being dropped from the dwindling list of locations that UK travellers can visit without facing quarantine when they come home. Italy last week imposed new requirements meaning visitors from the UK and some other nations must provide evidence of a negative Covid test taken 72 hours before travel – although some Italian airports have been providing tests on arrival.
Italy was one of the last major European holiday hotspots that UK travellers could visit without quarantining on their return, after France and Spain were dropped from the travel corridor in recent months, prompting chaos for tourists. Last year UK residents made more than 5m visits to Italy, according to Office for National Statistics estimates. Vatican City and San Marino are also being removed from the UK’s travel corridor, the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, confirmed on Thursday. The UK’s devolved administrations, who have their own powers to impose travel quarantine restrictions, are making the same changes to remove Italy, Vatican City and San Marino, meaning they are UK-wide. Separately, the Greek island of Crete is being added to England’s travel corridor following a fall in cases, meaning arrivals will no longer have to isolate, in a move that Shapps said aligns all of the UK’s approach to Greek islands. The changes for Crete, Italy, Vatican City and San Marino will come into effect from 4am on Sunday – an extra 24 hours’ warning than has been given for corridor changes in recent weeks.
Wales is also adding Crete to its travel corridor. Scotland, which imposed quarantine restrictions on travellers arriving from Greece last month, is re-adding the country to its travel corridor – with the exception of the island of Mykonos. Scotland’s community safety minister, Ash Denham, said: “Lifting quarantine restrictions on those travelling from most of Greece, in line with the public health data we have received, is not a signal that it is safe to book foreign travel. All travel carries a risk and people should think long and hard before choosing to go abroad.” Shapps has been under pressure from the aviation sector over the government’s failure to introduce a testing regime to cut quarantine times for visitors. Last week he launched a “global travel taskforce” to explore the issue, which is due to report next month. Italy has the second highest Covid death toll on the continent, with 36,289 fatalities since the pandemic began as of Wednesday, but its daily cases are currently below the UK’s. Following the announcement, a spokesperson for the Association of British Travel Agents said: “The removal of Italy from the travel corridors list is a major blow for many winter operators in the UK travel industry, and again demonstrates that travel businesses are effectively being forced to close by the government’s measures to control coronavirus yet, unlike other sectors such as hospitality, travel has received no sector-specific support.”