Reporter.lu reported on Travelpro’s ambitions this week. Director of operations Joëlle Weber confirmed the project to Delano, explaining: “It’s about facilitating travel again […] We try to choose destinations where this year it will be available where the government gives us the certainty and we see in the statistics that they are already moving ahead with vaccinating their own populations.”

Tourism is the one of the sectors that is the hardest hit by the pandemic. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization, tourist arrivals fell 74% in 2020 compared to 2019. Weber said her firm’s activity was at 98%  of the normal business as a result of the pandemic, with devastating effects on countries for which tourism is their biggest economic activity.

Experts have said that vaccination of between 70% and 90% of the world’s adult population is required to achieve herd immunity and end the pandemic. However, vaccination efforts have been hampered by the slow production and roll-out of vaccines.

According to the European Center for Disease Control Vaccine Tracker, in Luxembourg 24.3% of adults had received at least a single vaccine dose, on a par with its neighbours. Hungary had the highest uptake of a single dose at 42.3%, followed by Finland (30%).

Weber said it was too early to communicate about specific destinations, however, they would include long and short-haul city locations.

She said that the packages will focus on countries where a high proportion of residents had already been vaccinated and which offered the chance to non-residents to be vaccinated with the vaccine of their choice. Finally, only destinations where the treatment would be subsidized by the CNS would be featured, the director said, which rules out countries like the Israel where 62.4% had received a single vaccine dose at the time of writing.

Destinations are expected to be communicated in three weeks’ time.