The travel bug is here, both in its virulent form and in its “can’t wait to board a plane” version.

Eagerly waiting for the green light for safe travel, just to keep us in the right frame of mind, researchers’ studies reveal that planes are full of super bugs and it’s from there that we catch all sorts of tummy bugs and rather nasty episodes of movements of the kind we did not have in mind.

“Newly vaccinated travellers enjoying a return to trips abroad may find a drug-resistant "superbug" hitching a ride in their gut, a study in Genome Medicine says.

US and Dutch researchers studying the effects of travel on the bacteria in our stomachs were unnerved to find that a third of their subjects who travelled to South-east Asia carried a bacterial gene resistant to "last resort" antibiotics for infections such as pneumonia and meningitis.

"These findings provide strong support that international travel risks spreading antimicrobial resistance globally," said Mr Alaric D'Souza, a researcher studying microbial genomics and ecology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis who co-authored the study published this week.”

You may quickly wave that thought aside and actually double your determination to get out of the country as soon as possible and on to your destination of choice.  Your vaccination certificate is ready and printed or sitting happily on your phone.  Your bags are packed and ready to go.

Yet, anyone who returned from a trip abroad last week, having got caught up in the new directives for entering Malta, might have a rather different feeling on where they plan to spend their relaxation time.  Without knowing, travellers had to search for a PCR test centre, get the test done at an extra cost and waste precious time from their holiday.  But that was not the only paperwork or digital image they needed.  On departure from Malta, there were also forms to fill in electronically, submit and wait for approval to come in and then proceed.  They were these iffy type of forms that don’t accept your postcode and you have to do a roulette to find a combination of letters and numbers that it accepted.  Apparently, with Ryanair you also have to wear the blue facemask and not the one you chose for comfort and colour. 

The return to Malta involves crowds looking for a surface on which to fill in the new locator forms, asking for pens.  I wonder if language also adds to the confusion.  I remember when we used to be given the boarding pass to fill in on the plane.  At least we could use the table in front of the seat and use our new pen.  And it had some translation on it.

The whole experience was enough for my friend to say that travel will be off the programme until some semblance of normality is back.  Travelling is far from that luxury affair that it used to be but the new level of protocol really pushes the buttons.

The scenes at Fargo airport in Portugal were rather terrifying as Brits scrambled to get back in time to avoid quarantine.  The UK did a short notice U-turn on green-light Portugal and left many travellers in transit and those who have booked their holiday in limbo.

A TOM poll shows that 19% Maltese plan to travel in the coming weeks; 32% later this year; 21% next year and 28% once Covid19 is eradicated. 

This last bracket will probably have to wait another decade for Covid to be eradicated.  On the one hand only 13% of the global population have been vaccinated and on the other hand, these variants are going to be with us for a long time.

Therefore, there will be those who argue that it is silly to continue to put off travelling because the situation is what it is.  Precautions are what we must take and safety measures what we must look for. 

For others, travel is the last thing on their mind right now as they try to regenerate business and income.  The vouchers are out and the tables are everywhere, on the beach, on the street, in town and in the resorts.  Bars are open too now and the band clubs.  A great relief in general although the tables on Exiles beach and Surfside are definitely over the top, completely disregarding people’s right to space on the beach and peace and quiet at night.  If the authorities are going to force feed us with this business strategy, it can backlash on them.  Society is not just made up of tourists and youths who have had enough take-aways to last a life-time.  There is a civil society and all are entitled to the public areas and to reasonable hours of entertainment.  It is enough that we have to put up with clogged traffic of closed roads, parking problems in our localities and the noise of construction.  When there is no time in the day or night, in which we can regulate our nervous system at home, then we are really at health risk.  As usual, the Councils cannot do anything because the MTA has issued the temporary permits.  This MTA is a super-power in itself.

Let people chose their relaxation and spend.  There are enough restaurants in place already and others, as for example the ones in Valletta are facing competition not just from the resorts now but also the beaches. 

Keep mania out of it.  It would be wise to regulate the product now, rather than over-inflate it and stuff it in our faces.  Better to see to the quality of fresh air than the seat for our bums.

If Malta did not get the green light from the UK, it will find other markets and angles and it may not be a bad thing for now, to have more sustainable numbers of tourists, seeing that there is a wide shortage of staff in the hospitality industry.  Emirates will return from 14 July so that is good.

Today Identity Malta announced 35 strategic actions over 10 strategic thrusts, to improve customer care.  With such a list, it might wish to call it “creating customer care”.  The foreigners who were quickly given marching orders when the pandemic hit, are gone.  We do not know when and how their contingent will be replaced or if working conditions may improve in a way that jobs in hospitality become attractive to Maltese workers too.  Of course, some positions, due to language or other, can only be held by foreigners but a return to Maltese hospitality at the front desk of a hotel, will be a good experience for tourists.  Otherwise, the scale of exodus of the workers shows how little we valued their work and this is something which should be evaluated going forward.  Better law enforcement in working conditions and process of residence permits together with affordable accommodation are necessary to reverse the trend and get our industry on its feet again.

So, home or abroad, time will tell.