Switzerland opens doors for global tourists, excludes India

Travel buffs from India have to wait for a while before planning a trip to the breathtaking Switzerland. With the panic surrounding COVID -19 is dropping in Europe, Switzerland has opened its doors for global tourists, but not for India.

From July 20, in tune with European guidelines, Switzerland lifted restrictions for travellers from 21 countries, besides the European nations. India currently ranking third as the worst affected country- has been excluded.

However travellers from certain regions will be quarantined for 10 days after entering Switzerland, one of the few nations in the world which has managed to control the impact of the pandemic. They have to go into self-paid quarantine.

Besides opening the borders and gradually relaxing the rules, the country’s tourism board has initiated a ‘Clean & Safe’ campaign with tourism establishments joining to create a ‘Clean & Safe Label’ indicating they are committed to comply with the protection plans.

A total of six industry-specific labels are available for hotels, restaurants, navigation companies, cable cars, public transportation and meeting facilities.

Earlier on June 15, Switzerland had opened itself for travellers from the Schengen zone and others, and it now includes a total of nearly four-dozen big and small countries around the world, with plans to further open up gradually.

These include: Schengen Zone: Austria, Hungary, Norway, Belgium, Iceland, Poland, Czech Republic, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Latvia, Slovakia, Estonia, Liechtenstein, Slovenia, Finland, Lithuania, Spain, France, Luxembourg, Sweden, Germany, Malta, Greece, the Netherlands.

The other countries are: United Kingdom, Algeria, Andorra, Australia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Canada, Georgia, Ireland, Japan, Monaco, Morocco, New Zealand, Romania, Rwanda, San Marino, South Korea, Tunisia, Thailand, Uruguay and The Vatican.

Interestingly USA and Brazil are also excluded as those countries failed to contain the pandemic.

With a population of around 8.50 million — roughly equivalent to the number of daily commuters in Mumbai suburban trains — Switzerland has notched 34,000 Covid-19 cases, including 1,972 fatalities, as per the Worldometer dashboard.

Switzerland Tourism, a federal public corporation formed in 1994, opened its first branch in India in Mumbai (1977) followed by Delhi (2000), and has operations in 28 countries.