Future aka New Normal

[Indah]

@Indah replying to posts like this:



and trying to argue with @DownUnderwater Dan proves by itself how difficult these times are for you. Can you imagine few months ago having time to reply to such ridiculous posts?

BTW here in Greece we have opened our borders for tourism from several (mainly European) countries for 2 weeks now but things are far from ideal. Although the visitor numbers are still very low to make any noticeable difference for the economy, everyday 10s of incoming tourists are tested positive and put in quarantine while local cases are increasing - slowly for the time being but it is just a time bomb.

All the best...

Thanks Stephen, for us privately all is fine. We enjoy it very much having his time together as a family. I try to get a grip on what is happening in the near future related to tourism. And I try to understand how different people have their ideas about this. How people experinece this pandemic is more important than hard facts. Most people decide on feelings and not facts. Before last March I indeed hardly had time to look at Scubaboard or any other social media. What you write about Greece is not very promising. If it is difficult to attract visitors from Europe to Greece, it will be impossible to get them to Indonesia anytime soon.

 

[Indah]

Not to insult you or Greece, but there's a 100 other places I'd want to go to before Greece. Maybe some people got the same sentiment,... just being realistic

Indonesia welcomed 16 Million visitors in 2019. Greece attracted as much as 33 million visitors in 2018, up from 24 million in 2015, making Greece one of the most visited countries in Europe and the world, and contributing around 25% to the nation's Gross Domestic Product.

 

[DownUnderwater Dan]

Actually some Scubaboard members decided to fly to nice diving sites despite the risks, and here is one of their report:
COZUMEL – ALDORA – JUN26 – JUL06
It talks of almost empty flights, almost empty hotels, airports with a number of flights severely reduced...
Where did you read of "fully booked" touristic sites?
I would be very happy that the situation was fully normal, here the lack of international tourism is causing a lot of damage, as in most other countries where tourism is a relevant resource.
And albeit in some countries the numbers seem to suggest that the worst is passed, the risk that we come back to a mess when more people will travel again is still there.
I am truly with you when you say "think positive" and you advocated to avoid spreading panic, as there are already too many people scaring the community.
Still I do not see how a more positive view of the future can really change the things.
From my point of view, the only things which can really improve the situation are:
1) more money for researchers and for the free public health systems, instead of the systematic cuts happened in the last 15 years.
2) more test equipment and labs. Everyone should have been already tested with a PCR swab (for free), and the test should be repeated on everyone, every month, strictly insulating positives and tracing their contacts.
3) special laws reducing personal freedom and enforcing safe and healthy procedures, such as wearing masks, keeping distance, avoiding activities which involve promiscuity, and a mandatory tracking and contacting app on your smartphone.
4) special laws favouring "smart working" from home, remote learning systems for schools and universities, and generally removing the need for large part of travels done each day for meeting people, when we have now electronic systems which can avoid these needs almost entirely. Also the environment will be happy of reducing pollution from cars, aircraft, etc...
If all this will be done, then people will have to travel just for tourism. With proper measures in places, and much less people on aircrafts or trains, travelling will be reasonably safe, and at that point most of travels will be for tourism, not for for work. The ticket price will be much higher, of course, but that is not a problem: all the money saved not travelling for work all around the year can be saved for travelling for your holidays..
I want to be optimistic: the "new normal" world can be a nice place to live...

Thanks for your reply & sharing the link of other diver's experience.

In my situation, for the last few years, I'm either living in Indonesia or travelling there twice a month... depending on my work even 3-4 times a month. Airfares may go up, but I believe not so in SE Asia because the demand and overall industry has different dynamics to Europe or America. China has invested $trillion in ASEAN countries, where as USA only low $billions, so geopolitics may stifle the region's economic recovery. I have an optimistic outlook about current situation, & I hope and believe that the people of Indonesia will come out the other side of it soon, all the better

Since regional tourism is returning to Indonesia, I'm really anticipating to read the Indonesian forum about diver's awesome experiences and dives, and new dive spots or marine life around

 

[Indah]

Thanks for your reply & sharing the link of other diver's experience.

In my situation, for the last few years, I'm either living in Indonesia or travelling there twice a month... depending on my work even 3-4 times a month. Airfares may go up, but I believe not so in SE Asia because the demand and overall industry has different dynamics to Europe or America. China has invested $trillion in ASEAN countries, where as USA only low $billions, so geopolitics may stifle the region's economic recovery. I have an optimistic outlook about current situation, & I hope and believe that the people of Indonesia will come out the other side of it soon, all the better

Since regional tourism is returning to Indonesia, I'm really anticipating to read the Indonesian forum about diver's awesome experiences and dives, and new dive spots or marine life around

Since? Or: if and when? Regional as in their own city? All surveys I read point in one direction. People prefer to fly not more than 3 hours for their next holiday. Lembeh Island is a part of the adminstrative city of Bitung. Here we have the official code Red. Means high risk Covid-19 area. Manado just went from Red to Yellow. Some parts of Indonesia have yellow because there has not been hardly any testing yet. The numbers at Bali going up daily. Would the Australian government allow citizens to return from a holiday at Bali without isolation? This discussion I started is not about positive or negative. It is not a pep talk or motivational program. But it is to exchange thoughts and ideas. To help me and others to form and review an opinion. And for me, my temporary conclusion is, that we will not see foreign tourism in Indonesia for the next 10 months. Except from the few guys who also go to war zones and places where a natural disaster just stroke. And I do not have a judgement if this is good or bad. There are many sides and angles to it. I loved Bali when I first visited in 1988. And just recently talked with Max Ammer about the early nineties when we started diving in Raja Ampat. But I also see the losses in jobs and opportunities for the people living there and here. Somehow we have to re-invent dive tourism.

 

[Indah]

 

[garycrano]

Please do not judge Australians by the comments from Downunder Dan.

 

[Mod63]

Disclaimer: I do not intend to tell anybody what to do and what not. If I comment on a country and what it is doing it is purely based on the information that is available to me and I’m more than happy to accept in-country information. I do also know and accept that things that seem simple to do in Germany are not possible in other countries and I do not claim that Germany has done everything right.

Some thoughts from a "tourist" currently considering his options and travels.
I would never travel to a war zone, yet I have been to countries considered a risk by my government, in each case carefully considering what those warnings mean. E.g. Sudan, but as we arrived via ship from Egypt and did not even disembark for customs in Port Sudan the risk was acceptable. When it comes to diseases, heck, all of SE Asia is a risk area, e.g. for dengue, yet it has not deterred me from travelling there.
So, now we come to Covid19. On one hand not as deadly as other diseases I can catch on my travels (as a matter of fact with a very good chance of having a relatively mild progression), on the other hand it spreads like mad and you can spread it without knowing it. My personal risk of getting sick vs. the risk that I unknowingly infect others.
Which leads to the next step - my personal research into all of this. I'm a software engineer by trade, so logic thinking and analyzing complex processes is something that is at the core of my profession, and that my fiancée is a biologist helps me understanding the medical papers better. With the development in Italy (and later Spain and France), it became clear to me, and was supported by our leading virologists in Germany, that the critical path is hospital capacity. And that with test, trace, isolate you can manage it. Which proved correct as long as it was a few imported cases from China and Iran, and completely went awry when people came back from ski holidays mid-March.

• lesson 1: A lot of people in a confined space with lots of alcohol are not a good idea

So Germany started what has become known as "The hammer and the dance". We did scram, and we did it hard. Well, not as hard as other countries, but still. With the expected delay we were able to bring down the numbers from 6k/day to less than 1k/day within a month.(April to May time frame)

• lesson 2: When the crab hit's the fan you have to act decisively. If you can avoid getting into this mess, even better

Being it May now, we decided that we were willing to travel to Madeira, as Portugal has had low infection rates and rates in Germany were coming down. Unfortunately it fell through due to Portugal allowing travel to their mainland but not to the islands. As Germany was opening up their tourist destinations we decided to get onto one of the first planes to Sylt. Munich airport was spooky, with only 60 start/landings a day (usually they have around 90 per hour). Mask are mandatory once you enter the terminal and on the plane. You also have to wear them when not seated at your table in restaurants and in all shops. During the week we saw an increasing stream of people, but also that things worked quite ok. Only one place we saw managed to get shut down within a day after reopening for violating the rules.

• lesson 3: When you open/re-open put (sensible) rules in place and enforce them

We are now at mid-July, smack in the middle of holiday season in Germany. Beaches up north are packed, as are the mountains in the south. We have relaxed the rules further and further, but we have yet to see a major outbreak due to tourism. As a matter of fact, the two northern states have some of the lowest infection rates in Germany, one of them going 10 days without a single new case.

• lesson 4: Monitor closely. If case rates allow, relax further, but be prepared to stop or even pull back a little

So, from an in-country state of tourism, we are fine in Germany. Even taking into consideration that the daily new cases have doubled between mid-June and today (from 250 to 500 a day), it is not seen as alarmingly. We have had some major clusters in meat packing plants, so flare ups in confined housing situations (e.g. refugee dormitories) but now real uncontrolled spread in the wider population. We are now in the "Dance with the tiger" phase. Test, trace, isolate. And it leads to the next big topic:

Germans love to travel. Not only in country, but all across the world, especially Europe. Spain, Italy, Austria, Greece. And we have been chomping at the bit for those countries to let us back in. First has been Austria, with a very low case rate and a situation similar to Germany. It was our first "foreign" travel and we have been travelling frequently back and forth since. They have seen a slight increase in cases and have partially reinstated mask wearing rules that had been relaxed.
Italy is also open back for business, as I do not have any firsthand information I do not want to comment but from the numbers I see they are quite stable at a very low case rate.
Spain has been all over the news, and they have had to make some tough decisions. They closed down 2 major party areas on Mallorca and got nothing but praise for it. I do sincerely hope that the rude behavior of my country men does not lead to a spike in cases there. There are also concerns that we re-import cases from there like we did with the returning skiers in March and calls for testing and isolating all that come back from known party hot spots.
On Greece I do not dare to go into detail, as we do have a far more knowledgeable person on this thread. I do applaud the way they thought about on how to reopen, all the money and effort they out in to keep their country "clean". The testing regime they put in place seems to be working, hopefully catching enough cases at the border. I think they also made the right call to close the borders again to travelers from countries that light up with high rates of positive tests.
Summarizing for Europe, with the exception of the Balkan area and anything farther east, I would not hesitate to travel and spend my vacation in any country. I would monitor closely and follow the local guidance; maybe avoid the party hot spots.

What about the rest of the world? It’s complicated and varies greatly from country to country. As this thread was started from Indonesia and invited us to share our thoughts, here are mine. I’m scheduled to spend all of December in that lovely country, and being an optimist I still hope to do so.

Indonesia faces a multitude of challenges. It’s a large country, it is, compared to Germany, a poor country. It relies on international trade and tourism for a sizable portion of its income; both have been massively disrupted. I hope to be not offensive, but if Covid-19 hits Indonesia like other countries, even with a government that does not choose to turn a blind eye on things and throwing all it can into the game, it is still not enough. Not for lack of wanting, but simply because of all the challenges Indonesia has faced and still faces. Call it growing pains.
My first proposal would be to get Covid-19 under control in-country as best as you can. If it spreads like wild fire no country will lift travel restrictions for their people. And most travelers would not come even if they could. Get the numbers stable, as long as you play catch up you do not have the resources to think about anything else.
Next issue: ingress and egress. We need to get there and with a few exceptions (Garuda flies Amsterdam-Jakarta) this means transiting through another country. E.g. at present I could fly from Frankfurt via Singapore to Jakarta, but I cannot get back the same way as Singapore is not yet listing Jakarta as a “save” airport to depart from even for transit. So Indonesia is screwed. So you need a plan on how to get those countries in between too at least find a way to transit through.
Once in Indonesia, the ball is back on the Indonesian site. How comfortable are you with people travelling across country. What measures do you have in place for your own people? As far as as I understand, currently there are travel restrictions between different areas, and if you travel you need a negative PCR test. Can you administer them on the spot at your major airports that cater to tourists before they connect to another part of Indonesia? Do you require them for entering at all? Do you create a 2 class system where e.g. an Australian can fly to Bali without test and restriction because you deem Australia a save country while restriction travel from Java? Do you value tourist money that much?
Assuming that you sorted out on how I get to my final destination (and back), with the exception of Jakarta and Bali I start worrying less. Put me in a nice resort or on a LoB, wine and dine me and get me into the water. It’s warm, sunny, outside, all things that to seem to have an adverse effect on spread. I would not worry too much if I’m not 1.5m away from everybody else at all times. And find a way to ventilate without air condition.

Enough of my rambling, I have to get back to work to earn the money I plan to spend in Indonesia and them I’m off for a weekend of diving to keep in shape.
All the best to all of you and your families, happy diving and remember that even small things like wearing a mask in crowed place, keeping a little distance and more important staying happy will get us back in the water together.

 

[Mod63]

Please do not judge Australians by the comments from Downunder Dan.

I only judge them on their behaviour in late September when they flock to my home town

 

[tursiops]

Please do not judge Australians by the comments from Downunder Dan.

Nor judge divers by his comments.

 

[Indah]

Disclaimer: I do not intend to tell anybody what to do and what not. If I comment on a country and what it is doing it is purely based on the information that is available to me and I’m more than happy to accept in-country information. I do also know and accept that things that seem simple to do in Germany are not possible in other countries and I do not claim that Germany has done everything right.

Some thoughts from a "tourist" currently considering his options and travels.
I would never travel to a war zone, yet I have been to countries considered a risk by my government, in each case carefully considering what those warnings mean. E.g. Sudan, but as we arrived via ship from Egypt and did not even disembark for customs in Port Sudan the risk was acceptable. When it comes to diseases, heck, all of SE Asia is a risk area, e.g. for dengue, yet it has not deterred me from travelling there.
So, now we come to Covid19. On one hand not as deadly as other diseases I can catch on my travels (as a matter of fact with a very good chance of having a relatively mild progression), on the other hand it spreads like mad and you can spread it without knowing it. My personal risk of getting sick vs. the risk that I unknowingly infect others.
Which leads to the next step - my personal research into all of this. I'm a software engineer by trade, so logic thinking and analyzing complex processes is something that is at the core of my profession, and that my fiancée is a biologist helps me understanding the medical papers better. With the development in Italy (and later Spain and France), it became clear to me, and was supported by our leading virologists in Germany, that the critical path is hospital capacity. And that with test, trace, isolate you can manage it. Which proved correct as long as it was a few imported cases from China and Iran, and completely went awry when people came back from ski holidays mid-March.

• lesson 1: A lot of people in a confined space with lots of alcohol are not a good idea

So Germany started what has become known as "The hammer and the dance". We did scram, and we did it hard. Well, not as hard as other countries, but still. With the expected delay we were able to bring down the numbers from 6k/day to less than 1k/day within a month.(April to May time frame)

• lesson 2: When the crab hit's the fan you have to act decisively. If you can avoid getting into this mess, even better

Being it May now, we decided that we were willing to travel to Madeira, as Portugal has had low infection rates and rates in Germany were coming down. Unfortunately it fell through due to Portugal allowing travel to their mainland but not to the islands. As Germany was opening up their tourist destinations we decided to get onto one of the first planes to Sylt. Munich airport was spooky, with only 60 start/landings a day (usually they have around 90 per hour). Mask are mandatory once you enter the terminal and on the plane. You also have to wear them when not seated at your table in restaurants and in all shops. During the week we saw an increasing stream of people, but also that things worked quite ok. Only one place we saw managed to get shut down within a day after reopening for violating the rules.

• lesson 3: When you open/re-open put (sensible) rules in place and enforce them

We are now at mid-July, smack in the middle of holiday season in Germany. Beaches up north are packed, as are the mountains in the south. We have relaxed the rules further and further, but we have yet to see a major outbreak due to tourism. As a matter of fact, the two northern states have some of the lowest infection rates in Germany, one of them going 10 days without a single new case.

• lesson 4: Monitor closely. If case rates allow, relax further, but be prepared to stop or even pull back a little

So, from an in-country state of tourism, we are fine in Germany. Even taking into consideration that the daily new cases have doubled between mid-June and today (from 250 to 500 a day), it is not seen as alarmingly. We have had some major clusters in meat packing plants, so flare ups in confined housing situations (e.g. refugee dormitories) but now real uncontrolled spread in the wider population. We are now in the "Dance with the tiger" phase. Test, trace, isolate. And it leads to the next big topic:

Germans love to travel. Not only in country, but all across the world, especially Europe. Spain, Italy, Austria, Greece. And we have been chomping at the bit for those countries to let us back in. First has been Austria, with a very low case rate and a situation similar to Germany. It was our first "foreign" travel and we have been travelling frequently back and forth since. They have seen a slight increase in cases and have partially reinstated mask wearing rules that had been relaxed.
Italy is also open back for business, as I do not have any firsthand information I do not want to comment but from the numbers I see they are quite stable at a very low case rate.
Spain has been all over the news, and they have had to make some tough decisions. They closed down 2 major party areas on Mallorca and got nothing but praise for it. I do sincerely hope that the rude behavior of my country men does not lead to a spike in cases there. There are also concerns that we re-import cases from there like we did with the returning skiers in March and calls for testing and isolating all that come back from known party hot spots.
On Greece I do not dare to go into detail, as we do have a far more knowledgeable person on this thread. I do applaud the way they thought about on how to reopen, all the money and effort they out in to keep their country "clean". The testing regime they put in place seems to be working, hopefully catching enough cases at the border. I think they also made the right call to close the borders again to travelers from countries that light up with high rates of positive tests.
Summarizing for Europe, with the exception of the Balkan area and anything farther east, I would not hesitate to travel and spend my vacation in any country. I would monitor closely and follow the local guidance; maybe avoid the party hot spots.

What about the rest of the world? It’s complicated and varies greatly from country to country. As this thread was started from Indonesia and invited us to share our thoughts, here are mine. I’m scheduled to spend all of December in that lovely country, and being an optimist I still hope to do so.

Indonesia faces a multitude of challenges. It’s a large country, it is, compared to Germany, a poor country. It relies on international trade and tourism for a sizable portion of its income; both have been massively disrupted. I hope to be not offensive, but if Covid-19 hits Indonesia like other countries, even with a government that does not choose to turn a blind eye on things and throwing all it can into the game, it is still not enough. Not for lack of wanting, but simply because of all the challenges Indonesia has faced and still faces. Call it growing pains.
My first proposal would be to get Covid-19 under control in-country as best as you can. If it spreads like wild fire no country will lift travel restrictions for their people. And most travelers would not come even if they could. Get the numbers stable, as long as you play catch up you do not have the resources to think about anything else.
Next issue: ingress and egress. We need to get there and with a few exceptions (Garuda flies Amsterdam-Jakarta) this means transiting through another country. E.g. at present I could fly from Frankfurt via Singapore to Jakarta, but I cannot get back the same way as Singapore is not yet listing Jakarta as a “save” airport to depart from even for transit. So Indonesia is screwed. So you need a plan on how to get those countries in between too at least find a way to transit through.
Once in Indonesia, the ball is back on the Indonesian site. How comfortable are you with people travelling across country. What measures do you have in place for your own people? As far as as I understand, currently there are travel restrictions between different areas, and if you travel you need a negative PCR test. Can you administer them on the spot at your major airports that cater to tourists before they connect to another part of Indonesia? Do you require them for entering at all? Do you create a 2 class system where e.g. an Australian can fly to Bali without test and restriction because you deem Australia a save country while restriction travel from Java? Do you value tourist money that much?
Assuming that you sorted out on how I get to my final destination (and back), with the exception of Jakarta and Bali I start worrying less. Put me in a nice resort or on a LoB, wine and dine me and get me into the water. It’s warm, sunny, outside, all things that to seem to have an adverse effect on spread. I would not worry too much if I’m not 1.5m away from everybody else at all times. And find a way to ventilate without air condition.

Enough of my rambling, I have to get back to work to earn the money I plan to spend in Indonesia and them I’m off for a weekend of diving to keep in shape.
All the best to all of you and your families, happy diving and remember that even small things like wearing a mask in crowed place, keeping a little distance and more important staying happy will get us back in the water together.

Thanks a lot for this well argumented explanation of your thoughts. Highly appreciated.