Covid impacts more than vacations

The travel industry has been hindered by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Almost every country in the world has imposed travel restrictions both nationally and internationally since the spring of 2020. Thousands of leisure trips have been cancelled, but other travel has been affected as well. 

Simarjeet Kaur, 22, a local college student, was planning to visit her home country over summer vacation but cancelled her plans due to COVID-19 restrictions. 

“I planned to go to India in May 2020 regarding some issues in the visa process for my husband but due to Covid, all flights were cancelled,” said Kaur. 

“I was not able to visit my country and until today my husband’s file is in process and there is no result yet.” 

Kaur said it has been almost two years since she came to Canada. Now, she wants to visit her family, but she is not able to go. 

Sarah Hupalo has been a travel agent at Goliger’s Travel Plus for almost 30 years. 

She said there were a lot of people who were stuck in other countries last spring, “where we had to get them home or try to help them if they could not get home.” 

Cancelled, interrupted, and postponed travel has created several issues for travel agents. 

“It is still happening now where we are still trying to get refunds or process insurance claims, rebook trips that people had rebuilt. We booked them again for this year,” said Hupalo. “Now we have to cancel them again and book them next year. So, we are doing all the work for free. When the companies refund the passengers, we have to pay back any commission that we earned. It is very financially challenging for us to handle that.” 

Hupalo said those in the travel business must plan for the worst and hope for the best. Everything is dependent on what the government says. 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made some recent changes in travel restrictions. All international flights are only landing at four airports in Canada – Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, and Vancouver. 

All the travellers must quarantine for three days at a government–approved hotel at their own expense, which could cost more than $2,000, while they wait for a COVID-19 test result which was conducted at the airport. 

Travellers with positive results will have to isolate for two weeks in some selected government facilities and people with negative results can continue to isolate at their home.