Israel advances 'travel bubble' with other Mediterranean countries
Israel is in talks with Greece, Cyprus and a few other countries with low infection rates about creating travel corridors for resuming international flights.
Representatives of Israel and seven other countries met May 18 to discuss tourism in the time of pandemic and how to jump-start the tourism and aviation industries. They examined the possibilities of opening mutual borders safely. Like Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark and Greece have all started lifting coronavirus restrictions, after registering significant decreases in the number of people sick with the novel coronavirus. These countries are now puzzling out how to get their respective tourism industries back to their feet, which will require opening airports and enabling flights. Representing Israel at the discussion were senior officials from the Foreign Ministry as well as the those of tourism and health.
The idea is simple: these eight countries, which seem to have successfully thwarted the spread of the coronavirus, would now like to create a travel bubble. Nationals living inside the bubble could travel freely without self-quarantine requirements. The very large majority of tourists traveling to Israel arrive to the country by air, not by land, with just a few foreign tourists reaching Israel through Jordanian or Egyptian border crossings, so Israel is greatly interested in this initiative.
