Some travel agencies not booking certain int’l trips due to bevy of COVID-19 restrictions

MONTREAL – Some travel agencies have decided to stop selling trips to the Caribbean until at least May 1, in anticipation of federally-imposed bans on non-essential travel.

People want to get away, but Quebec Premier Francois Legault is one of many Canadian officials asking people to stay home instead.

“When we inform the clients of the restrictions, both before, during, and after, a lot of them by themselves decide not to go,” said Moscou Côté, the President of the Quebec Association of Travel Agents.

“Some have come forward and have said, whoever calls them will not be sold an all-inclusive Caribbean package, and I think that’s somewhat responsible.”

The travel industry continues to suffer amid the pandemic – and agents say they don’t know what to tell clients anymore and don’t want to steer them wrong.

They say at least 50,000 travel reservations have been cancelled since Ottawa implemented the requirement for a negative COVID-19 test result 72 hours prior to landing in Canada.

Montreal-based Air Transat is now revising its winter schedule as restrictions have had a major impact on bookings with the airline.

Quebec’s public health institute says six cases of the highly-contagious U.K. variant have been declared in the province, all in the Montreal region. At least 10 cases of the U.K. and South African variants have been found in Alberta and B.C.

READ MORE: How many variants of the coronavirus are there?

“What we believe would be the safest course would be that when travellers return to Canada, either non-essential or essential travels, they are put in a quarantine like we currently have, and after five days upon their return, then they could do a test because these tests check if you have COVID-19 five days before. that’s the sensitive stop for the test to be accurate,” said Côté.

“The one downside to rapid testing, depending on the test kit you use, you have slightly lower sensitivity, so you have a little bit more of a problem with false negatives,” said epidemiologist and cardiologist Christopher Labos.

Legault has called on the federal government to ban non-essential travel. B.C. Premier John Horgan has also pushed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to ban inter-provincial travel.

RELATED: Alberta not imposing stricter interprovincial travel just yet

Manitoba’s provincial government recently announced additional mandatory quarantines for people arriving in the province whether they are international or domestic travellers.

Many experts say imposing tougher travel restrictions before March break begins would be key– some calling on it to be cancelled fully to help curb the spread of the virus.

Last year’s school break is a key factor in Quebec’s high infection rates and eventual deaths last spring.

Travel agencies and airlines insist that travellers only account for two per cent of COVID-19 cases and that the industry can continue operating safely.

“It’s not that we don’t want to sell, as much as we have no one to sell to,” said Côté.

-with files from NEWS 1130, 660 NEWS, CityNews Winnipeg

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