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As an American living (and trapped) abroad - I get looks of sympathy and shakes or the head when I mention I’m from the states. One thing I have noticed is tha

As an American living (and trapped) abroad - I get looks of sympathy and shakes or the head when I mention I’m from the states. One thing I have noticed is that countries want tourism but are now super careful about who they let in. Recently I wanted to travel elsewhere, but was unable to enter most of the world with my American passport. So I got another extension instead for 2 more months. Another thing I’ve noticed is that some countries now actually are beginning to realize that their economies are down, but can survive without the hordes of dirty foreigners coming to their country. So there is just no rush to reopen especially with the medium sized and fast growing countries. Nationalism to some small degree is definitely in play in a lot of governments these days. And with the resurgence of the virus, lockdowns are being expended and reestablished in many places. The reopenings planned for August 1 are definitely not going to happen. No passport is any good right now - except in its own region.

RestlessMind 6y ago
> Another thing I’ve noticed is that some countries now actually are beginning to realize that their economies are down, but can survive without the hordes of dirty foreigners coming to their country. Are you sure? Travel and tourism account for 13% of the economy in Italy and 9% in France and Europe as a whole [1]. So maybe the pain will be tolerated only for a short while before these economies are compelled to open doors to Americans (and Chinese too). [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/europes-tourist-hot-spots-suffer-as-u-s-big-spenders-are-told-to-stay-away-11594132862 https://www.wsj.com/articles/europes-tourist-hot-spots-suffe...
- Bayart 6y ago
  France has a lot of domestic tourism, and to an extent European tourism. The economy has been rebounding faster than anticipated so I'm not sure the government would be keen on pulling its pants down to bring in tourists when it's already got more than enough bad press.
- lm28469 6y ago
  The only people who will suffer are the people who destroyed their local industries in favor of tourism related jobs. It's a big issue in some parts of Greece for example, some regions lost most of their regular jobs to tourism and now that shit hits the fan it's a big problem.
- aerique 6y ago
  The economic damage from allowing Americans in is probably bigger because the health care systems will be overwhelmed again.
- eric4smith 6y ago
  Yes I’m sure. Domestic tourism is picking up a bit of the slack but not all. But people are slowly beginning to find alternative jobs and sources of income. Do not believe that just because you’re from a western country people are going to fall to their knees to welcome you in. It’s a mistake we’ve made in a lot of countries and people there are beginning to wrinkle their noses at us now.
SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
Yeah, that last part is what really concerns me here. A lot of people seem to have overindexed on the US's failures to decide that their region has in comparison beaten the virus. Therefore things are safe now and there won't be a resurgence and the current state of free intra-European tourism will continue. This is, to put it delicately, not what any health official in the continent believes.
jkaplowitz 6y ago
The European Union tourism rules don't exclude Americans by citizenship, despite a lot of misinformation in media reports and even certain more half-official web pages like that of the Paris airport (but these mistakes are not in the legally binding national documents nor the official European Commission recommendation text). It cares about residence officially, or as applied by some countries, where you're coming from or where you've been recently. The FAQ in the Netherlands even specifically addresses the hypothetical example of Americans living in Australia - yes such people are allowed in. So if you live in a safe country and haven't been elsewhere recently, you should be allowed in. I'm considering trying this next month (I'm an American in Canada), and I'm not looking forward to airline or border processing, but we'll see. The CBC article that we're discussing gets it right and wrong at different points in the text. The headline says "citizens", the text correctly says "residents", but a lot of the focus is on the loss of value of the passport despite that not being the operative criterion. An Australian living in the US is barred from most European tourism right now, just like an American living in Australia isn't.
hatchnyc 6y ago
There are different kinds of tourists as well. Shuffling hoards of cruise ship passengers out on a day trip to snap their Instagram selfies with a few landmarks and buy some mass-produced tchotchkes from the gift shops before returning to the ship for dinner has a massive impact on quality of living for locals (and even other higher value, lower impact tourists) while doing very little for the local economy. I really hope when this is over we see a global end to the bargain mass tourism that's been causing so much damage to cities around the world in recent years.

RestlessMind 6y ago

> Another thing I’ve noticed is that some countries now actually are beginning to realize that their economies are down, but can survive without the hordes of dirty foreigners coming to their country. Are you sure? Travel and tourism account for 13% of the economy in Italy and 9% in France and Europe as a whole [1]. So maybe the pain will be tolerated only for a short while before these economies are compelled to open doors to Americans (and Chinese too). [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/europes-tourist-hot-spots-suffer-as-u-s-big-spenders-are-told-to-stay-away-11594132862 https://www.wsj.com/articles/europes-tourist-hot-spots-suffe...

Bayart 6y ago
France has a lot of domestic tourism, and to an extent European tourism. The economy has been rebounding faster than anticipated so I'm not sure the government would be keen on pulling its pants down to bring in tourists when it's already got more than enough bad press.
lm28469 6y ago
The only people who will suffer are the people who destroyed their local industries in favor of tourism related jobs. It's a big issue in some parts of Greece for example, some regions lost most of their regular jobs to tourism and now that shit hits the fan it's a big problem.
aerique 6y ago
The economic damage from allowing Americans in is probably bigger because the health care systems will be overwhelmed again.
eric4smith 6y ago
Yes I’m sure. Domestic tourism is picking up a bit of the slack but not all. But people are slowly beginning to find alternative jobs and sources of income. Do not believe that just because you’re from a western country people are going to fall to their knees to welcome you in. It’s a mistake we’ve made in a lot of countries and people there are beginning to wrinkle their noses at us now.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

Yeah, that last part is what really concerns me here. A lot of people seem to have overindexed on the US's failures to decide that their region has in comparison beaten the virus. Therefore things are safe now and there won't be a resurgence and the current state of free intra-European tourism will continue. This is, to put it delicately, not what any health official in the continent believes.

jkaplowitz 6y ago

The European Union tourism rules don't exclude Americans by citizenship, despite a lot of misinformation in media reports and even certain more half-official web pages like that of the Paris airport (but these mistakes are not in the legally binding national documents nor the official European Commission recommendation text). It cares about residence officially, or as applied by some countries, where you're coming from or where you've been recently. The FAQ in the Netherlands even specifically addresses the hypothetical example of Americans living in Australia - yes such people are allowed in. So if you live in a safe country and haven't been elsewhere recently, you should be allowed in. I'm considering trying this next month (I'm an American in Canada), and I'm not looking forward to airline or border processing, but we'll see. The CBC article that we're discussing gets it right and wrong at different points in the text. The headline says "citizens", the text correctly says "residents", but a lot of the focus is on the loss of value of the passport despite that not being the operative criterion. An Australian living in the US is barred from most European tourism right now, just like an American living in Australia isn't.

hatchnyc 6y ago

There are different kinds of tourists as well. Shuffling hoards of cruise ship passengers out on a day trip to snap their Instagram selfies with a few landmarks and buy some mass-produced tchotchkes from the gift shops before returning to the ship for dinner has a massive impact on quality of living for locals (and even other higher value, lower impact tourists) while doing very little for the local economy. I really hope when this is over we see a global end to the bargain mass tourism that's been causing so much damage to cities around the world in recent years.