Maritime and aviation minister Robert Courts has insisted the government is “constantly” liaising with international counterparts to make travel “smoother and easier” but said negotiations had been “a real challenge”.
Courts confirmed the UK government was looking at options to simplify the Passenger Locator Form (PLF) for arrivals but said the process was complicated by different international formats and requirements.
Speaking on a Travel Weekly webcast ahead of this week’s special cruise issue, Courts said the government aimed to simplify travel rules “wherever we can” and that cross-border talks had helped facilitate the recent easing of testing requirements for fully vaccinated arrivals.
However, he admitted efforts to harmonise protocols could be “tricky” as countries managed their responses to the pandemic.
“We’ll always continue to talk to international partners but it’s been a real challenge,” Courts said.
“Everybody’s managing a public health concern first and foremost, but we’re keen to make sure that, wherever we can, we can make things smoother and easier.”
Asked if cruise faced additional challenges compared with other sectors due to limitations on passengers’ movements on board, he said he was impressed at how wider travel protocols had been “specifically applied to cruise”.
“The protocols that were drawn up have been really successful,” he said. “People are able to get out and do what they love doing – going on cruises, safely.
“This is great for the industry and the thousands of people that it employs [and] all the money it brings into the economy.”
Courts pointed to last year’s UK domestic sailings to highlight how health and safety protocols drawn up in partnership with the government have been implemented effectively.
“Thousands of people have got to see our incredibly beautiful coasts who haven’t before as well as people who haven’t been cruising before got to go for the first time.”
Courts said the government took a “precautionary approach” once the Omicron variant emerged and decided to strengthen testing requirements prior to Christmas.
“We needed to check whether [the variant] was likely to have significant public health ramifications,” he explained.
“So we’ve had to take the precautionary steps that we have. Happily, as you know, we’ve been able to take those back.”
He said that the entire travel sector had been hampered by the emergence of Omicron but added that travel requirements were now back in the “brilliant condition” that they were in prior to the variant.
Courts’ comments came after Clia Europe director general Marie-Caroline Laurent told a separate Travel Weekly webcast the cruise body continued to lobby for harmonised travel rules across Europe and was “calling very strongly” for a mutually-recognised PLF.
The calls for harmonisation come as cruise lines continue to suspend sailings, with Marella Cruises this week cancelling three March sailings on Discovery 2 from Majorca.