The African Travel and Tourism Association (ATTA) is continuing its lobbying efforts – through its affiliations with Save Future Travel Coalition and the Travel Industry Alliance – to move sub-Saharan countries out of the UK’s Red List of countries.

Currently, most countries in the region are on the list.

This follows news from Britain that it is moving to the next stage of its ‘roadmap’ out of lockdown (effective April 12), determining the UK’s travel restrictions from different countries.

On Friday last week (April 9) UK Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, launched the framework for the safe return of international travel, based on the report by the Global Travel Taskforce.

These include the launch of a new traffic-light system (red, amber and green) for travel into the UK and a ‘green watchlist’.

“Government’s priority remains to protect the public and the vaccine roll-out from international coronavirus (COVID-19) variants of concern,” said Shapps.

The new traffic-light system, which will categorise countries based on risk alongside the restrictions required for travel, will be set up to protect the public and the vaccine roll-out from international COVID-19 variants.

Key factors in the assessment will include:

• the percentage of their population that have been vaccinated
• the rate of infection
• the prevalence of variants of concern
• the country’s access to reliable scientific data and genomic sequencing

The Global Travel Taskforce report shows how international travel could resume from May 17 at the earliest, in an “accessible and affordable way”.

This includes the removal of the current permission to travel form – meaning passengers would no longer need to prove they have a valid reason to leave the country.