Nearly 200 Dutch tourists were scheduled to arrive Monday on the island of Rhodes in an experiment to test whether vacations can be considered safe amid the coronavirus pandemic.
TRAVEL
![Pedestrians walk along a harbour during sunset in Alimos, a seaside suburb of Athens, on Friday. [AP]](https://www.ekathimerini.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/greece_AP-1-320x200.jpg)
With the next two months seen as pivotal to the recovery of the country’s finances, the government is banking on the longest possible duration of the tourism season and a June restart of the economy, without the need for continued injections of liquidity.
With the summer season approaching – and the epidemiological picture allowing – hotels are on course to open in three phases: Easter Week, May 15 and the end of June. The phase that each hotel will open in will depend on the market from which it attracts customers – i.e. whether it is aimed at […]
![Rowena Harding, 46, works at the garden of her house, amid the coronavirus disease pandemic, on the island of Aegina, March 26. [Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters]](https://www.ekathimerini.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/digital_nomad_reuters-1-320x200.jpg)
AEGINA – From her garden on a sunny Greek island, Rowena Harding works with governments and charities across the globe.
![The village of Husavik, perched on Iceland’s northern coast, August 3, 2019. First Husavik was the setting for the Netflix film ‘Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga’ – now, a song named after the town is up for an Oscar. [Suzie Howell/The New York Times]](https://www.ekathimerini.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/ICELAND-SONG-OSCARS-320x200.jpg)
HUSAVIK, Iceland – On a recent Monday, in the backroom of an empty seaside hotel here, a group of locals gathered anxiously around a computer livestreaming the 93rd Academy Awards nominations, waiting to discover whether their campaigning had been successful.
Greek health authorities confirmed on Monday the first imported Covid-19 infection in Crete on a German tourist who tested positive shortly after landing at the town of Iraklio.
Greece said on Sunday it was extending restrictions on domestic flights until April 12 and on international flights until April 19 as the number of new Covid-19 infections continues to rise.
![Travellers at Tampa International Airport in Tampa, Florida, Feb. 8, 2021. [Chang W. Lee/The New York Times]](https://www.ekathimerini.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/travel_NYT-1-320x200.jpg)
Americans who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 can safely travel at home and abroad, as long as they take basic precautions like wearing masks, federal health officials announced Friday, a long-awaited change from the dire government warnings that have kept many millions home for the past year.
Philos is the new virtual assistant whose function is to help travelers passing through Athens International Airport, initially on a pilot basis.
Greek authorities will accept all vaccination certificates issued by Serbia, even for jabs that have not been approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), such as the Russian and the Chinese, Greek Tourism Minister Haris Theoharis said during a visit to Belgrade on Monday.
![[John Thys, Pool via Ap]](https://www.ekathimerini.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Breton_AP-320x200.jpg)
European Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said on Sunday that he hoped Europe will have a summer tourist season this year, supported by a ramp-up in its Covid-19 vaccination efforts.
Greece on Thursday lifted a one-week quarantine rule for Israeli travellers who are vaccinated against Covid-19 and test negative, the civil aviation authority said.
Ryanair is reasonably confident that British tourists will be taking holidays across Europe in June, July and August, a ray of hope for the tourism industry amid gloom over a rise in Covid-19 cases in top destinations.
An experiment to test whether vacations abroad can be considered coronavirus-proof was approved by the Dutch government on Wednesday and will take place on Rhodes in April, according to reports in the Dutch media.
![[Intime News]](https://www.ekathimerini.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Parthenon_acropolis_intime-320x200.jpg)
Greece started welcoming tourists from Israel on Tuesday, following an agreement between the two countries to accept citizens with a certificate of vaccination.
![Jessie Astbury Allen, whose husband is still in China more than a year after she left, with her daughters, Mae, 7, and Livia, 12, in Cheddar, England, March 19. China’s coronavirus travel and border restrictions have hampered the operations of many companies, separated families and upended the lives of thousands of international students, and global companies say their ranks of foreign workers in the country have dwindled sharply. [Francesca Jones/The New York Times]](https://www.ekathimerini.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/CHINA-VIRUS-2-320x200.jpg)
Leave your partner and children behind. Quarantine for up to a month. Get inoculated with a Covid-19 vaccine from China, if you can find one. And prepare yourself for an anal swab. For the past year, people trying to go to China have run into some of the world’s most formidable barriers to entry. To […]
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