It appears there is talks of saving summer tourism between the UK and Greece by providing jab receivers with vaccine passports that would ultimately enable Britons to travel to the popular vacation destination.
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Quarantine-free holidays in Greece might very well be an option as tourism minister Haris Theoharis reveals having had 'technical discussions' for Athens to recover from the major blow to its vital tourism industry in lieu of the COVID-19 pandemic.
British tourism essential for Greece's economy
Normally, about four million tourists visit Greece each year, with British tourists–in particular–accounting for more than £2 billion to their economy. The Greek minister has said that providing Britons with a vaccine passport would be the best way possible to verify immunity allowing them to freely travel without the need to provide a test certificate. He said:
We don't want to limit travel to those who have been vaccinated but since we are mandating that before travelling someone has to have a negative test result, this is a waste of resources if people are vaccinated to be tested every time they travel, the need for this testing could be limited by the vaccination certificate.
Similar arrangements done elsewhere
As is the case between Greece and Israel, agreements have been made allowing for free movement of vaccinated people as soon as international flight will be allowed again.
The Greek minister also believes that seeing how the current vaccination rollout program has been accelerating over the past few weeks, the UK is a perfect country to enter into a vaccine passport agreement with.
He also argued that vaccine passports were the most secure and legitimate way of facilitating travel as test certificates are easier to falsify by providing fraudulent negative test results. He explained that:
Our vaccine certificates which are digital have three levels of security and can be confirmed and verified by the relevant authorities in the countries that we discussed.
