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Hotel quarantine system falls at the first online hurdle

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independent.co.uk

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Fri, Feb 12, 2021 07:02 AM

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Simon Calder’s Travel Week February 12, 2021 Will hotel quarantine be quietly forgotten? Unti

Simon Calder’s Travel Week [View in browser]( [Alternate text] Simon Calder’s Travel Week [Simon Calder]( February 12, 2021 [Simon Calder]( [Twitter]( Will hotel quarantine be quietly forgotten? Until this week the world of travel had rarely intersected with the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981. The only relevance, I fondly believed, was to deal with fake passports. But then hotel quarantine was launched by a UK government that seems intent on the wilful destruction of the travel industry – supported by the Opposition, whose main contribution is to urge even tighter restrictions on travellers. The reason I reacquainted myself with this dusty old statute was to establish the government’s basis for sending errant arrivals to prison for 10 years. As you will have read, [hotel quarantine]( requires arriving travellers to declare if they have been to one of the 33 countries on the “red list” within the past 10 days. Fail to mention that evening’s stroll across the Rio Caia from the fine Spanish city of Badajoz to Irene’s Bar – 10 minutes’ walk into Portugal – and you have used a false instrument, for which a decade behind bars is regarded as an appropriate punishment. It is 11 months since [Australia imposed hotel quarantine overnight]( on all arrivals, and a month since ministers here started saying the UK would do the same. And yet the government been unable come up with a system that survives first contact with travellers. The website that arrivals are required to use [crashed about 10 minutes]( after it was launched. Eighteen hours on there is no sign of life, which has given me plenty of time to study some other aspects of the hotel quarantine policy. The arrival points the government has selected are simply weird. Heathrow and Gatwick are obvious – but where is Manchester airport and the port of Dover? Instead we’ve got London City and Birmingham airports, which are almost moribund. Plus Farnborough, which is purely for rich people flying in on private jets. The view in the travel industry is that hotel quarantine is simply about looking tough: if the government really thought this form of house arrest would do any good, then it would have been brought much more quickly. The hope and expectation is that it will be quietly forgotten. The only question: how much more damage will it do to the travel industry before it is added to the long list of failed policies? [Alternate text] Danger zone: the Portuguese coast at Cascais [Alternate text] The beach in Bourgas Destination of the week: Bourgas Even amid the general air of despair in travel, airlines are continuing to launch new routes. And Thursday was remarkable for the lovely Bulgarian city of Bourgas. Wizz Air announced it would set up a base at the modest airport just outside town, with links to Liverpool, and then easyJet revealed plans for a service from Gatwick. Both UK routes start in June. The resort is well placed for exploring the whole Black Sea coast – which includes plenty of ancient history – as well as nipping north across the border to Constanta in Romania. . Get the full Independent perspective Subscribe today for £1 and enjoy unlimited access to our trusted journalism. [Subscribe now]( . Bargain of the week The travel firm hardest hit by the third lockdown? Arguably it is Grand Central, the "open access" operator that competes with state-owned LNER on the East Coast main line from London King's Cross to York and beyond. The express trains are standing idle for the rest of February. But from 1 March services are due to resume. If you, like me, believe that leisure travel within England may be allowed once again from 8 March, then avail of an absurdly good-value £13.30 one-way from London to York. Railcard discounts apply. Question of the week Stuart G asked: "I just read a report that said a GB sticker is required for driving in Europe even if the registration plates already have GB on them. Did one of your recent articles not say the opposite?" Like so many travel issues to do with the UK's decision to leave the European Union, the answer is pretty complicated. Millions of British cars have registration plates with the “EU identifier” – the blue rectangle on the left-hand side that shows the 12 stars of the European Union and the letters GB. If that is the case for your car, you do not need to replace the plates but the identifier no longer has any value. From 2021 onwards everyone with such plates must also display a GB sticker. Some plates have a GB identifier on the left-hand side without the EU stars – sometimes with a Union flag, sometimes not. These will continue to be valid almost everywhere in the EU, except in three countries. Two of these are largely irrelevant – the Mediterranean islands of Cyprus and Malta – while the third is not. It’s Spain, by far the most popular destination for British holidaymakers. Your travel question welcome: @SimonCalder on Twitter or email s@hols.tv Stories you may have missed [I'm an image]( [Travel won’t be possible until everybody vaccinated, transport secretary says]( [I'm an image]( [Travel won’t be possible until everybody vaccinated, transport secretary says]( [I'm an image]( [Plane slides off taxiway at Pittsburgh Airport; no injuries]( News you can trust The Independent has a 100% NewsGuard trust rating [Alternate text] [Find out more]( . Let me know your thoughts on Twitter [@SimonCalder](. If you can spare a minute we’d love your [feedback]( on our newsletters. [The Independent]( Join the conversation or follow us [Facebook]( [Twitter]( Please do not reply directly to this email. You are currently registered to receive The Independent's Travel email. Add us to your safe list of senders . If you do not want to receive The Independent's Travel email, please [unsubscribe](list_name=IND_Travel_Newsletter_CDP). If you no longer wish to receive any newsletters or promotional emails from The Independent, you can unsubscribe [here](. This email was sent by Independent Digital News and Media Ltd, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5HF. Registered in England and Wales with company number 07320345. Read our [privacy notice]( and [cookie policy](.

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