Quarantine-free travel bubbles were hailed as tourism’s “godsend” earlier this year, but cancellations and suspensions have deflated hopes they will herald a return to pre-pandemic normality.
Perhaps the world’s most high-profile bubble opened between Australia and New Zealand on April 19, leading to emotional scenes as families split when borders closed almost 400 days earlier were reunited.
Since then, New Zealand has ordered partial shutdowns on four occasions due to virus scares in Australian states, the most serious of which forced Melbourne into a snap lockdown this week.
A spike of Covid-19 cases in Taiwan burst its bubble with the tiny Pacific nation of Palau last we…
Keep on reading: Tourists scarce as travel bubbles fail to inflate