We've been hearing a lot of rumblings about travel bubbles lately, but you may be asking...what exactly are they? Where did the idea come from? How has Compass created our own travel bubble of sorts? Well, while these bubbles may not be the solution to travel during a pandemic, but they just might be the saving grace we need to build up the economy and give people more freedom. Here’s everything you need to know about travel bubbles, their impact on the economy, and Compass' ability to hop on board and join the movement.
WHAT IS A TRAVEL BUBBLE?
A ‘travel bubble’ is the term used when two or more countries agree to open their borders to each other, including every entry type (land, sea, air, etc.). The first bubbles were between countries that had successfully controlled of COVID-19 and then decided to open their borders to surrounding neighbors. Their borders still remain closed for all other countries outside of their bubble.
For the past few months, travel has either been banned, for essential purposes only, or limited, depending on where you’re located. Travel bubbles give individuals freedom to travel (within certain areas) without having to quarantine. The goal is to give more freedom and sustainable solutions for the public. If today’s current bubbles show efficiency and safety, they’ll slowly begin to include more countries.
WHERE DID THIS IDEA COME FROM?
Travel bubbles are an extension of Per Block’s (an Oxford University researcher) specialties on social mobility. The idea of a travel bubble comes from his work on social bubbles, where people expand their quarantine zone to include more people they consider safe. He claims that travel bubbles could be an incredibly effective strategy to alleviating Coronavirus isolation and help build structure around containing its spread.
HOW DO THEY WORK?
Through all the policies and structure built around a travel bubble, hope, trust, and transparency are at the forefront. You need to be able to trust your partner countries, their ability to contain the virus, and their ability to tell the truth about their current standing.
Widespread testing, contact tracing, and effective quarantining need to be strong before and while a travel bubble is in place. Per Block states that the beast (and easiest) time to form a travel bubble is when two countries have no more cases.
WHAT ARE THE ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF A TRAVEL BUBBLE?
In short, travel bubbles help countries who rely on tourism. CNN reported that Australians make up almost 40% of international arrives to New Zealand, where tourism is their biggest export industry. If New Zealand and Australia can make their travel bubble work and keep new infections at zero, they'll begin to expand the bubble to other countries that are also doing well at containing the virus. (Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea).
Asean Business managing director, M Ghandi, says that creating a travel bubble for international business travelers to Malaysia will build Malaysia’s economy back up very quickly. He states:
“The ‘travel bubble’ should be limited to South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, China, Thailand, Singapore, Australia, Vietnam and Hong Kong which have similar numbers of daily new cases. In 2019, Malaysia received about 930,000 business travelers and around 70% of whom came from the above mentioned countries, resulted in about 1.2 trillion dollars worth of trade. This travel bubble could kickstart the trade economy gradually, but strict standard operating procedures must be observed”.
So you're probably thinking, great, but how does this affect my travel?.....
TRAVEL WITHIN YOUR OWN TRAVEL BUBBLE WITH COMPASS | ARTlab Living
Our team has structured, professionally managed apartments globally. While each state has different regulations, occupancy levels, and worrisome travelers, we’ve been hard at work trying to take advantage of our open apartments in order to provide peace of mind for our residents and corporate partners.
If you need to travel into the city and want to ensure proper sanitization protocol, a structured check-in process, and reliable work from home setups, we’ve enhanced our protocols to guarantee safe, efficient solutions. If you're traveling to, or already located within one of these hotspot areas, having a Compass apartment ready and reserved acts as your own place of solace through the madness...creating your own mini travel bubble of sorts.
For teams traveling and working together via remote setups, we'll make sure your team is properly connected throughout states, provide appropriate set-ups with our work from home packages, and work hand-in-hand to help you navigate the proper travel program moving forward. We truly believe in acting as an extension to your team. We're here to ensure the consistent quality, service, and professionalism your team expects, no matter what roadblocks get in the way.
Reach out to our team and we'll help talk through our personalized packages and services, or click here to see our available apartments.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hey, guys! It's Maddy, the Content Creator at Compass. Do you think travel bubbles are as effective as they claim to be? Find me here on LinkedIn and we'll connect!
