Led by the UK, G7 Countries Meet Virtually to Ideate a Travel Strategy for the Global North

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As the hope of international travel resumes for most countries, strategies for ensure a safe transition are also underway. The Transport Secretary of UK chairs G7 meeting to support the safe reopening of international travel. The meeting was held to outline aligned principles for reopening international travel. Governments around the world continue to play a leading role in establishing global travel standards.

Details about the Virtual Meeting

Work to enable the safe return to international travel continued at a meeting of transport ministers hosted by the UK government and headed by its Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps.The virtual meeting brought together transport ministers from the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the EU Commission to identify common goals and principles that will help develop globally recognized travel standards for when international travel reopens. This includes best practices for sharing scientific data and promoting coordination on universally recognized travel certificates.

UK Transport Secretary, Grant Shappsasserted in a statement released, “If we’re to safely and sustainably restart international travel on a global scale, we need a robust, accessible and coordinated approach.That’s why I’ve brought together my G7 counterparts to identify shared goals, address challenges we may face and progress work on a coordinated approach that will allow us to build back better as we look to the future.

Ideating a Travel Strategy for the Future

Governments around the world are trying to restart the travel industry and resume any semblance of the pre-covid times, as much as possible. At today’s meeting, the Secretary of State also outlined the UK government’s approach to reopening international travel through the recommendations of the Global Travel Task Force Report. Published last month, the report sets out a framework to restart international travel from 17^th May at the earliest through the introduction of a traffic light system.As part of this, the UK government continues to play a leading role in the development of international standards around digital travel certifications. Work continues across the UK government to prioritize a solution to enable passengers to prove their COVID-19 status for vaccines for outbound travel to another country.