EU - Vaccination Certificate: TravelFirst glimpse of new EU 'vaccine certificate' for summer-by Elena Sánchez Nicolás

The European Commission unveiled on Wednesday (17 March) its common approach to vaccine certificates to ease free travel within the bloc - amid concerns over the slow and unequal rollout of vaccines across member states.

The announcement comes after tourism-reliant member states, led by Greece, and industry players like the International Air Transport Association, urged the EU to establish a form of vaccination proof ahead of the summer holiday season. <

Read more at: First glimpse of new EU 'vaccine certificate' for summer

The Netherlands - tourism: Keukenhof plants more bulbs to tackle unpredictable temperatures

Keukenhof plants more bulbs to tackle unpredictable temperatures

Read more at:

https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2020/01/keukenhof-plants-more-bulbs-to-tackle-unpredictable-temperatures/

USA: Why is tourism to the United States on the decline? - Gun violence

The decrease isn't steep, but any decline is seen as alarming, given the overall rise in global tourism.

One of the major reasons for this decline in tourism to the US is the fear of gun violence in America, which is widely publicized around the world.

Read more at:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2019/09/06/more-people-are-traveling-world-than-ever-number-coming-america-is-dropping/

Tourism: Spain set for tourism record as U.S. visitors counter Brexit blues

Spain is on track for a record year of tourist arrivals, the seventh straight year of new highs, with U.S. and Asian visitors countering the disruption of Brexit and collapse of tour operator Thomas Cook, the industry minister said on Wednesday.

Read more at:
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-spain-economy-tourism/spain-set-for-tourism-record-as-u-s-visitors-counter-brexit-blues-idUKKBN1XU20E

Tourism: Netherlands, Aruba land on Lonely Planet top 10 destinations

Aruba and Netherlands are two of the best destinations to visit in 2020, according to travel guide Lonely Planet's annual list of the best countries to visit. In the top 10 countries, Aruba is in fourth place and the Netherlands in seventh.

Read more at: Netherlands, Aruba land on Lonely Planet top 10 destinations | NL Times:

USA: Tourists Beware - US Still Cowboy Country: Mass shootings past 24 hrs kill 30 people in Texas and Ohio

Tourism USA - Still No Gun Control ?

This year alone, there have been at least 32 fatal shootings in America,

Mass shootings in El Paso Texas, and Dayton Ohio. If I was a tourist deciding if I would go on vacation to America, and heard that 29 people were killed within 24 hrs today, in addition to the non-stop gun violence all around the country, and knowing the US has no real gun control laws which work, I would certainly think twice, before I would go to the US on vacation.

Statistics are also showing that the U.S. tourismvhas suffered heavily since 2016. Now it looks like the evidence is finally here.

The bigger picture shows the U.S.is specially  losing ground on the global stage. Arrivals to Europe and Asia-Pacific both increased by 6 percent, while the Middle East saw a 10 percent uptick in 2018. It seems that global travelers are looking elsewhere for their vacations.

“International travel markets posted disparate performance in 2018 including several notable surprises on the downside,” states the report from Tourism Economics.

“After registering average annual growth of 23 percent over the previous decade, Chinese travel to the US stopped in its tracks last year—perhaps in connection to trade tensions. Similarly, South Korea fell 3 percent after averaging 11 percent growth over the prior ten years. Japan also contracted; this continues the narrative of an ever important but languishing market. And Germany surprised with a steep decline in 2018, perhaps evidence of a reaction to unpopular U.S. diplomacy and policies.”

Among some of the major reasons foreign tourists are giving for not choosing the US as their tourist destination  are: inadequate Public Transportation Systens, personal safety, as a result of gun violence and poor infrastructure.

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The Netherlands: when the Easter weekend ends this Monday in Europe, over one million tourists will have visited the country this sunny Easter weekend

Read more at:
https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2019/04/one-million-tourists-to-hit-the-netherlands-over-sunny-easter-weekend/

Amsterdam's last floating florist closes, blaming tourists

Amsterdam's last floating florist closes, blaming tourists

Read more at: 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/16/amsterdams-last-floating-florist-closes-blaming-rowdy-tourists?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

Travel Warning: Travelers within, from, and to the US, please get to airport early, because as a result of US Trump Administration shutdown of the Government, many security TSA officers have called in sick, and could cause major delays

https://eu-digest.blogspot.com/2019/01/travel-warning-get-to-us-airports-early.html

The Netherlands: Dutch hit back at "over - tourism"

Not Disneyland': Dutch hit back at 'over-tourism' -

Read more at;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-46194330

European Railways: Why interrailing as an adult is the best way to explore Europe - by Chris Beanland

Interrailing should be a compulsory teenage rite of passage – no wonder the EU recently floated the idea of giving out free passes to all 18-year-olds. What better way to protect this beautiful, but fragile union than by showing the next generation what they have in common with each other and how many hi-jinks they can get up to in neighbouring European countries?

It was my first taste of independent travel too – 17 summers ago, though it seems like yesterday. Back then it was a Karrimor loaded with band T shirts, Lonely Planet Europe On A Shoestring and bank robber sacks of change for telephone boxes. This time, instead of sleeping cars, hostels and that tangy scent of socks, there were nice hotels and the scent of understated luxury. Three’s Feel At Home free roaming contract and my iPhone brought the whole experience into the 21st century, and meant home was only the touch of a button away.

It was a cultural whip round the first time, but it was also a piss up – getting out of your tree being the sine qua non of teenage travelling – that resulted in lost cash cards, nearly getting into fights on night trains and passing out on deck chairs on Positano Beach. And I met so many people – this was social networking avant la lettre, coming across fellow flaneurs from Australia, Canada, Finland, and making firm friends, if not for life then at least for a night.

Interrailing as an adult was much more relaxed and even more cultured, with less boozing and earlier mornings. I sped through Rotterdam’s Docklands on a watertaxi, climbed all over Tomas Saraceno’s incredible spiderweb netting art installation five floors above the ground of Dusseldorf’s Modern Art Gallery, had a sneak preview of some of the exhibits at Kassel’s famous art festival, Documenta (documenta.com), saw Eileen Gray furniture at Munich’s Design Museum, drank at Wes Anderson’s Bar Luce in Milan’s Fondazione Prada, and explored Novi Belgrade’s mind-blowing brutalist architecture.

The food was better this time around too. Back in 2000 I had inadvertently explored the premise “how can a human function on pizza alone for three weeks?” shortly after enduring the very worst meal of my entire life (do not ever accidentally order the minced heart and lung soup at Worgl station buffet).

This time I ate mushroom arancini with a vegetable mayonnaise in an old swimming pool in Rotterdam (alohabar.nl) and fresh white asparagus at the BMW Welt’s restaurant. Even the train food was good – on Deutsche Bahn’s ICE I chowed down on lamb kofte with yoghurt and mashed carrots in the Bordrestaurant.

Read more: Why interrailing as an adult is the best way to explore Europe | The Independent

Mobile Phones: EU -Wide Free Roaming Charges A Boost For European Tourism And Users

EU-Wide No More Roaming Charges

Whether you voted remain or leave, the European commission has come to your aid. Holidaymakers are about to get free mobile phone roaming across Europe and a host of other destinations from 15 June – for the next two years, at least.

Following a long campaign and a series of staged roaming price cuts, the EU Commission has finally put in place a long-cherished aim – the ability of Europeans to make same-cost mobile calls and data downloads irrespective of which EU country they are in.

But fears remain that once Brexit takes place the gains could be reversed for Britain. And holidaymakers will still need to be careful about getting caught out in some non-EU countries such as Switzerland, Andorra and even the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, which are not formally part of the EU or even the European Economic Area (EEA).

Some mobile operators are choosing to include these areas in their new roaming-free packages, but others are not. What’s more, Turkey appears to be half in, half out – Vodafone is treating it the same as the EU but others are not.

Already initial reports show that free roaming in the EU since June 15 has been a huge success for consumers and tourism.

EU-Digest

Kazakhstan: EXPO-2017 in Astana, Kazakhstan, is worth a visit

Kazakhsta Capital Astana is a modern and friendly city

After a build-up lasting five years, Kazakhstan has finally opened EXPO-2017. If you’re in Astana between now and mid-September when it closes, you should go.

It might feel excessively corporate and you’ll probably come out of the EXPO-2017 site none-the-wiser on what exactly its Orwellian-tinged ‘Future Energy’ means, but don’t dwell on this — it’s not the real point of the exposition.

In reality it is putting Kazakhsta on the map for many people and they will be very positively surprised.

EXPO-2017 is a source of national pride and a must-do event for most ordinary Kazakhs this summer, at least for the ones who live in and around Astana.

And this pride and sense of fun is evident throughout EXPO-2017. The dozens and dozens of uniformed guides are courteous, speak excellent English and are genuinely helpful. The student volunteers beam with joy and are relishing the internationalism of the whole event.

As for the visitors, at the beginning of the expo it must have been 95% Kazakh. These were groups of families and friends touring the pavilion, drinking in each country’s take on EXPO-2017. This ranges from Britain’s glowing yurt to Iran’s focus on promoting its carpets.

The visiting Kazakhs, armed with selfie sticks and aging smartphones, weren’t the super rich who travel effortlessly around the world, these were Kazakhs who may never have left Central Asia, or been on a solitary trip to Europe. EXPO-2017 feels as if it has returned the international exposition series to its original mid-19th century Victorian era roots of bringing the world to a particular city.

And make sure you don’t miss out on the Caribbean pavilion, the least scripted section. The women from Belize, Haiti and Dominica will tell you how they are coping with four months in Kazakhstan, a country they hadn’t heard of until earlier this year.

Many Airlines are flying into  Kazakhstan with some special fares of less than euro 100.00 rt.. including:

Lufthansa flights	Ukraine International flights	Pegasus Airlines flights
Aeroflot flights	Etihad Airways flights	Turkmenistan Airlines flights
Air France flights	Air India flights	Hainan Airlines flights
S7 Airlines flights	Atlasglobal flights	Uzbekistan Airways flights

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON ON KAZAKHSTAN CLICK HERE

EU-Digest

Visit USA ? Have you ever smoked pot? Saying yes can get foreigners barred for life at US border - by Rob Hotakainen

USA Tourism: Pot smokers will be banned for life

Canada's likely move to completely legalize marijuana next year promises to produce immediate spillover effects in the United States, starting with increased confusion at the U.S.-Canadian border.

"I'm expecting my business to boom," said Len Saunders, an immigration attorney from Blaine, Wash.

With recreational marijuana already legal up and down the West Coast, from Alaska to California, he said, more Canadians may let down their guard and admit to U.S. authorities that they've used marijuana, reason enough to get foreigners barred from entering the country. Beyond that, pot retailers and legalization backers say it's difficult to predict exactly what might happen if Canada, as expected, becomes only the second nation in the world to fully legalize pot for anyone over 18 on July 1, 2018.

Even with such a big move, Jacob Lamont figures the Canadian customers will keep coming to Evergreen Cannabis, his pot shop in Blaine, just a few blocks from the U.S.-Canadian border.

"I enjoy my brothers and sisters from the north — obviously they support my business quite well," said Lamont, who estimates that Canadian customers make up 60 percent of his year-round business. "They still come down here. They buy a lot of milk, they buy cigarettes and they buy alcohol, because the taxation is so high up there. And I have a feeling they're going to follow suit with marijuana."

Oregon Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer, a longtime champion of legalization, said it could be a game changer for Congress.

"It completely changes the dynamic," he said. "Some regard Canada as the 51st state. This is going to make a big difference in terms of adjusting attitudes and accelerating progress. ... It's going to help us bring these things to a head."

Saunders scoffed at the idea that the United States would ever legalize marijuana with President Donald Trump, a teetotaler, in the White House.

"You have a president who not only has an attorney general (Jeff Sessions) who is going to fight drugs, but you have a president who's never even had a sip of alcohol," Saunders said.

One of Saunders' clients, Alan Ranta, 36, a freelance music journalist from Vancouver, British Columbia, got barred last year as he tried to drive his Toyota Yaris into Washington state. During questioning, he was handcuffed and told a U.S. border guard he had smoked marijuana in the past. Even though he was not carrying the drug with him at the time, Ranta said, he was told that under U.S. law he had committed "a crime involving moral turpitude."

"It lulls you into a false sense of security when you don't have anything on you and you've done nothing wrong and you're going to a place where it's legal," Ranta said. "You keep thinking, 'This is crazy, why am I getting in trouble?'"

He figures he was stopped because he and a friend were headed to a music festival, with a banana suit, tutus and a psychedelic top hat visible in the car: "If it's an electronic music festival, we like to dress up in weird things that we'd never wear day to day."

Saunders said that even Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as a private citizen, could be denied entry since he had admitted to smoking marijuana in the past. Saunders is advising people not to lie to border authorities but to refuse to answer any questions about past pot use.

Note Almere-Digest: It is up to you now dear US visitors: either you lie, or choose another  tourist destination than Trumpland.

Read more: Have you ever smoked pot? Saying yes can get foreigners barred for life at US border

Tourism: Travel trends for 2017: City - Sand - Sea

Dutch Beach: sometimes the beach is closer than you think

Where to go on holiday in 2017? To help potential customers decide, the travel companies have already got their catalogues out. And most agree that safety will again be a top priority among holiday-makers in 2017.

The facts and figures of the past months give the tourism industry cause for optimism: the demand for holiday offerings continues unabated - in spite of the lingering threat of terrorism. The UNWTO World Tourism barometer indicated an increase of 1.6 percent in overnight stays within Europe for the turbulent year 2016. So European tourism is still growing, even if no longer as rapidly as in previous years. And safety still ranks as the top selling point.

Spain and Portugal were last year’s most popular destinations and look set to top the list for 2017, as well. Travel companies are expanding their hotel capacities wherever they can.  Tui, the world’s largest tour operator, has acquired a good 20 percent more hotels on the Canary Islands alone. FTI has taken on 75 new hotels, and Alltours a full 100. But the beach capacity remains the same. Will vacationers find a spot to spread their towels on such overcrowded stretches of sand? In any case, they’ll have to splash out more cash for their summer vacation in Spain than in previous years. Prices are going up, as well.

Turkey registered 33-percent fewer tourists in 2016. Whether the sector has any real chance exists to recover from such a steep drop remains to be seen. The tour operators haven’t started cutting hotel capacity just yet, but they’ve slashed the prices: Tui by five percent, Thomas Cook and Neckermann by eight percent. The hotels offer the same high quality for less money. But will such a bargain be enough to counter holiday-makers’ fears in 2017? 
 
Read more: Travel trends for 2017: City - Sand - Sea | DW Travel | DW.COM | 06.01.2017

Identity: How Powerful Is Your Passport and how many countries can you visit with it?. - by Ricky Linn

People may be increasingly leaning on technology and personal devices to house their personal information, but a hard copy passport still carries a hefty amount of weight.

This infographic offers a glimpse into the power of the world's passports -- ranked by the travel freedom a passport holder enjoys.

EU-Digest

Turkey's economy spiraling down as risk indicators growing for the country

Are Erdogan's undemocratic actions taking their toll?

Credit default swaps are a major indicator measuring country risks, denoting the insurance premium on money invested in a country’s government bonds. The higher the credit default swaps, the higher the country risk.

According to economic sources such as Reuters and Bloomberg, Turkey’s credit default swaps reached 250 in October, the second highest among emerging economies after Brazil with 266. South Africa is third, almost neck and neck with Turkey, followed by Russia, whose risk premium has been on the decline, falling to 218 in October.

Turkey’s risk premium has fluctuated over the years. When the global financial crisis erupted in 2008, for instance, it shot up to 321, while falling to 167 in 2010, when economic growth gathered steam. With the recent decline in economic growth, the risk premium has climbed up again, reaching the current level of 250.

Another widely monitored risk indicator is the grade a country receives from credit rating agencies. Two of the top three agencies watched by investors around the world — Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s — cut Turkey’s sovereign credit rating to non-investment grades in July and September respectively, infuriating Ankara and leaving Fitch as the only major agency that keeps Turkey on investment grade.

Downgraded ratings especially sway the movement of “hot money” or short-term investments in stock market shares and government bonds. These types of external funds have become quite important for Turkey, accounting for a portfolio investment stock of between $40 billion and $42 billion.

Pension funds, in particular, heed closely the assessments of credit rating agencies, pulling out from countries downgraded to non-investment level. And indeed, the Turkish Central Bank’s data points to net capital outflows in the wake of the latest downgrades.

The flight of foreign capital was then followed by the Turkish lira tumbling against the dollar. The greenback, which traded for 2.94 liras before the Moody’s move, has climbed up to 3.11 liras in the ensuing weeks, and seems unlikely to retreat from these levels. Given the country’s bulky external debt stock and the significant share of short-term debt it includes, the appreciation of the dollar on such a scale is not something the Turkish economy can easily digest.

 For indebted entities, a more expensive dollar means their debt has now increased in terms of the Turkish lira. And when it comes to imports, which amount to about $200 billion per year, the dollar’s appreciation means an increasing cost for imported inputs, including machinery and equipment, and thus a cost-push inflation.

In its 2017-19 medium-term economic program, the government tacitly estimates the average dollar-lira parity for 2016 at 2.95, but the trend has already surpassed its projection in the first 10 months of the year. The average parity stood at 2.93 in the first half of the year, while reaching 3.00 in the second half so far. A downward trend seems highly unlikely in November and December, meaning the average for the whole year would be no less than 3.00.

This, in turn, would equal to a yearly increase of nearly 10%, given that the average parity was 2.73 in 2015. According to the program, the government projects a consumer inflation rate of 7.5% for 2016, and if this materializes, the increase in the dollar-lira parity would exceed the inflation rate as well.

When it comes to economic growth, the program projects the rate at 3.2% for 2016 and 4.4% for 2017.

The target for next year depends largely on the inflow of foreign capital, something that the program itself admits by projecting that domestic savings would not exceed 13% or 14% of gross domestic product, meaning that the funds needed for investment could be secured only externally. And this brings up the key question: Will the expected inflow of capital materialize? How will Turkey attract foreign funds to stimulate growth while its risk premium is on the rise, coupled with a “non-investment” grade by credit rating agencies?

Turkey’s prevailing conditions and its prospects for 2017 signal heightening rather than easing risks. Economic vulnerabilities are growing, with only a 0.1% increase in investments this year. Atop the investment drought, net external demand falls short of leveraging growth, compounded by rapid declines in domestic demand, the result of growing political and geopolitical risks affecting consumers.

Swelling housing stocks have caused particular concern, leading the government to cut the value added tax on housing sales by 10 percentage points last month at the expense of losing budget revenues. Yet, the construction and housing sector — the driving force of the economy in recent years — appears headed to new bottlenecks in demand.

Rising geopolitical risks are an important factor driving the decline in domestic demand, the backbone of economic growth. Turkey's interventions in Syria and Iraq have painted the picture of a country at war, deterring both foreign tourists and investors. The turmoil in the Middle East and Ankara’s ongoing confrontation with Kurdish actors both at home and abroad represent a major component in the risk factor. The choice of a security-based policy rather than dialogue and negotiations on the Kurdish issue is, no doubt, pushing up the country risk.

In sum, the policies that manage the Turkish economy, already relegated to the “non-investment” league, are bound to heighten rather than lower the risk factors in the coming period. And a meaningful rate hike by the US Federal Reserve in December would intensify the flight of foreign capital from Turkey, further escalating the risks.

Read more: Risk indicators growing for Turkish economy

The Netherlands: Nine weird things to do in the Netherlands

And you thought the Netherlands was just about tulips, windmills and clogs. Don’t you believe it. There are some very strange places to check out indeed.

Visit the mummies of Wiewerd Wiewerd is a tiny hamlet built on terps – raised mounds – in deepest Friesland. The story goes that in 1765, carpenters working in the church found a crypt with 11 coffins containing bodies that had become mummified. They are thought to have been members of an obscure Christian sect called the Labadists who lived nearby. Four bodies and several mummified birds are in the crypt today – the missing bodies are thought to have been stolen by medical students at long gone Franeker university. To visit ring a bell on the church and someone from the village will come and open the door to let you in.

Get weighed to see if you are a witch The village of Oudewater near Utrecht features on most lists of the Netherlands’ prettiest villages but we consider it to be seriously strange. Forget the cobbled streets and canals – if you go to the town’s weigh house, they will find out if you are witch.

Visit 22 bits of Belgium, completely surrounded by the Netherlands Baarle Nassau is a town of some 6,000 people in Noord Brabant which contains rather large chunks of Belgium. In fact there are 22 little bits of Belgium in the locality, the smallest of which is named H22 and measures just 2,632 square metres.

Visit 22 bits of Belgium, completely surrounded by the Netherlands Baarle Nassau is a town of some 6,000 people in Noord Brabant which contains rather large chunks of Belgium. In fact there are 22 little bits of Belgium in the locality, the smallest of which is named H22 and measures just 2,632 square metres.

Go underground in Limburg The St Pietersburg caves in Limburg are not caves at all but mines – the result of 2,000 years of digging for marl – the mud stone used in building and agriculture. The digging, which began with the Romans, led to the creation of a labyrinth of 20,000 tunnels and passageways, many of which are covered in graffiti dating back centuries.The caves are also home to what the local tourist board says is the ‘largest and oldest underground Christmas market in Europe’. We cannot imagine there are any others….

Spend time in a village devoted to prisons In the depths of darkest Drenthe is the prison village of Veenhuizen which was developed in the early 19th century as a place where anti-social families, the jobless and the poor of Amsterdam were sent to be reformed.

Check out human and animal deformities Not for the fainthearted – the Vrolik Museum in the heart of the AMC medical centre in Amsterdam Zuidoost is devoted to pathological specimens – from jars containing club feet or Siamese twins to framed pieces of skin covered in tattoos.

Go as low as you can It is somewhat disconcerting to stand next to a lorry park not far from Rotterdam and imagine that you are nearly seven metres beneath the sea. The Zuidplas polder near Rotterdam is 6.76 below sea level, making it the lowest point in the Netherlands.

Have a drink in Sexbierum Okay, school boy humour we know, but Sexbierum must be one of the wackiest names for a Dutch village – perhaps even beating the charmingly named Muggenbeet (mosquito bite) in Overijssel. Unfortunately, the name of this Frisian village of under 2,000 souls does not derive from various vices but from a combination of the name of the pope Sixtus II and the Old Frisian word for house or barra.

Read more: Nine weird things to do in the Netherlands - DutchNews.nl

France - Tourism: visitors to France complain unable to pay with local credit card at most French toll roads

French toll roads not user friendly for tourists

If you are touring France by car, you could be in for a big surprise, specially when using one of their overpriced toll roads, and need to pay for the toll.

The shock will not only come for the high cost of the toll, but also when you want to use your  "home bank" credit card to pay  for the toll, and finding out it won't work. 

Basically the French want you to pay with cash, which is quite inconvenient, because it requires you to carry a large amount of cash with you, which in general is not always a safe thing to do. 

France is quite different in that respect to most other countries in Europe were foreign credit cards are widely accepted with  the exception of the Netherlands, where non-European credit cards are also often frowned upon.

EU-Digest

The Netherlands: Foreign tourists in the Netherlands often unable to use their local debit and credit cards - by RM

Foreign Credit and Debit cards not easy to use in Holland

The Netherlands is not very "Tourist Friendly" when it comes to tourists wanting to use their debit or credit cards for local purchases.

Most of the time they are unable to pay with their credit/debit cards for purchases or expenses in local stores, restaurants,gas stations, train stations, toll roads,  hotels or super-markets.

US bank credit or debit cards, even those with a "chip" or "pin-code" usually won't work in the Netherlands and basically force the owner of that card  to take out cash from a local ATM. This automatically results in high bank charges for these transactions by the credit card holder's own local bank in addition to potential exchange charges in the Netherlands.

As one tourist, who wanted to pay for a raincoat she bought in a local department store in the city of Almere, but had all her cards declined, said in desperation - "this must be the first country in the world where the banking system and stores don't want to make it easy for tourists to pay for their goods with a debit or credit card."

Almere-Digest