Travellers arriving on the first quarantine free international flights are embraced by family at Sydney International Airport, November 1, 2021. ReutersAustralia and Thailand eased international border curbs significantly on Monday for the first time in 18 months, offering an early litmus test of the demand for tourism and travel in Asia following the coronavirus pandemic. Losses in Asia alone were close to $50 billion in 2020, while in both August and September, international travel in Asia-Pacific stood at about 4% of 2019 levels. Thailand and Australia had adopted some of the world's toughest curbs to limit the spread of the coronavirus. Most of Thailand's 1.9 million infections and more than 19,000 related deaths have come since April, with about 42% of its 72 million people vaccinated.

Source: The Nation November 01, 2021 23:10 UTC