The state of travel right now This year has been completely defined by the emergence and global spread of the corona epidemic.  Unfortunately as it continues to be a global threat, we can only hope that 2021 will be defined by life after the pandemic that has changed life as we know it.

In the realm of travel, things are slowly improving and we can only we predict the coming year will marked by a surge of what we are calling “revenge travel”. Collectively, all over the world we are predicting we will return to travelling with a renewed enthusiasm and appreciation from the freedom and and many times in this year we will never forget – 2020- what we had all before taken for granted. It will no doubt make the next trip much sweeter, with deeper connection to the destination to which you decide will be your next travel destination

It is something before 2020 that we had all taken for granted- the ability to just book a flight and travel to wherever we wanted when we wanted without permission or quarantine, papers.

It’s something we had only read about in the history books a hundred years ago. And damn it we are going to make up for the missed holidays, booked flights, business trips, and everything in between for many of us whose life has been on hold while travel has been and everything in between!

THE UNITED STATES

I was in the US at the start of the year with the expansion of our company to new markets and was caught in the the global epidemic with Delta Airlines closing and my flights twice being delayed then cancelled and stranded there. I was lucky enough to finally get a flight back in May and one of 88,000 people passed through all of the TSA’s checkpoints across the mainland United States and its territories. , they saw the commercial airline traffic almost collapse almost completely.

It was an incredible way to travel let me tell you – San Francisco was deserted I will never forget it!!!!

Since then, the airline industry in the US has clawed their way back quite a bit, with close to 100,000 people passing through TSA checkpoints since the beginning of September and more than 4.1 million travellers passed through TSA checkpoints although largely travel is nonexistent —or very limited- and conditional and unfortunately it seems that it will remain that way for some time.

AUSTRALIA

And then 2 weeks in quarantine in Sydney before I came back home to the Gold Coast in May.

However, in Australia it’s not looking nearly as optimistic right now with our borders CLOSED.

Our border’s are closed with only citizens, residents and immediate family member can travel to Australia and needing quarantine for 14 days upon arrival back to Australia as well as special Government permission to depart Australia. And for the most part so have our state border’s for the most part with Queensland and South Australia will finally open its borders partly in the coming weeks without any reopening date set.But our island home, while relatively free of COVID-19, has turned into an island prison and very few of us are able to leave:

With lockdowns ending around the world, many countries have started to ease border restrictions and reopen to international tourists. Here is the complete list.

Looking to next year

So this year is pretty much finished, so we have to look toward 2021 to hopefully start to put this pandemic behind us, I believe that many Australians will not only get back to exploring the world as quickly as possible, but many will do it in a much different way than before.

Enter REVENGE TRAVEL! 

Just like breaking up with someone, you strive to do your best to show the other person that you’ve come out on the other side even better than before.  The same principle applies to travel.

People will want LONGER. BETTER, MORE IMPACTFUL WITH MORE BUCKET-LIST TRIPS and MORE INSTA-WORTHY MOMENTS, because now we all know how precious a gift travel really is.

When we can travel without the hassle of worrying about testing and quarantine(which may not completely happen in 2021- we are going to have to wait and see), we all will want to travel in a way that truly enriches the soul.

We are going to have to see how 2021 plays out for testing and quarantine to really see how the pandemic really alters our traveling habits, but….. my guesses are that there are going to be changes.

For travellers and medical travellers that would that would jet off to a destination for a few days prior to the main destination for, maybe a week maximum- that’s not going to be possible.

We are going to be slowing down and exploring in a manner much different than before and taking in our surroundings instead of checking off many different ports, but we will see.  It would certainly open up opportunities for not just people having medical holidays but take much longer vacations and actually immerse themselves in a totally new culture and place after their surgery.

This makes sense from the perspective of national governments, as well. If they let a smaller number of people in for a longer amount of time, they can minimize the risk of a new COVID outbreak. So while still bringing in more money from a person who is living and working within the country than a typical short-term tourist- Thailand for instance is already making available 90 day Visa’s for tourists able to be renewed twice in place of the previous 30 days.

Our Revenge Travel List

The usual culprits!

THAILAND

Thailand of course has been a favourite since we began in this business way back in 2007. We has new business partnerships with some first-class international hotel partnerships in Bangkok, Phuket together with our hospital and surgery packages we are excited to offer with our incredible team of Surgeons when Thailand opens both Australia and Thailand opens their borders to international travellers looking like early to mid 2021 and Bali is looking the same!

BALI

Happy Chinese New Year we look forward toto 2021 the Year of the Ox and forget (hopefully) the terrible luck year the Rat has brought in 2020! 🐭

In Europe the majority of the local coronavirus restrictions were lifted earlier this summer (Europe) .

EUROPE

But, everything has been tinged with coronavirus concerns, so naturally, we looking forward to the day when we can travel again without worry.  This means our pics Turkey has been open, as has Mexico.

US AND MEXICO

Nip Tuck Holidays is honoured to be attending the 11th Medical Tourism Congress in Mexico representing Australia at an international level event in medical tourism. so the future is shining bright abroad!

We look forward to returning back to the US and Mexico and opening our US-based office and starting to host again our individual and Group Tours to Thailand, Bali as well as our new destinations in Turkey and Mexico and an exciting a successful 2021!