Skift Take
Two years in, the pandemic continues to show just how split most European Union member governments are on pandemic leadership. Destinations that persist with multiple entry rules will continue to negatively impact their tourism economies.
Perhaps no other region has demonstrated the chaos and resulting negative impact on the travel industry as a result of a non-uniform approach to entry rules than the European Union. But there was hope for the end of the fragmented EU approach by early 2022.
The European Council adopted a recommendation, effective February 1, that members should lift all entry restrictions for intra-EU movement, and base the rules on an individual’s health status — vaccinated, recovered, or neither — rather than the traveler’s country of origin.
This would mean members agreed in principle to take a more coordinated approach to travel within the EU for starters as of Tuesday, and…