Future aka New Normal

[tursiops]

And mate, how is it a ridiculous post when people already posted on this thread that flights have been full, boats have been full, at different continents & countries of the world?

You are quoting yourself! What a dumb and BS post.

 

[DownUnderwater Dan]

Ok I apologize. Whatever...

BTW here in Greece which is one of the very few countries in the world that are (somewhat) open for tourism right now things are VERY VERY far from being full - even half full (I won't say half empty - I like to keep positive too ) is very far away.

It is something to be positive and something else to be realistic.

Not to insult you or Greece, but there's a 100 other places I'd want to go to before Greece. Maybe some people got the same sentiment,... just being realistic

 

[Angelo Farina]

Not to insult you or Greece, but there's a 100 other places I'd want to go to before Greece. Maybe some people got the same sentiment,... just being realistic

??? Greece (and Italy) are worldwide favourite touristic attractions, and there are fantastic diving sites...
Some small islands are true paradises, both above and under water.
I am really sad that the tourism is not running as well as in past years, but of course the conditions are unfavourable, and it is already good that some motivated tourists are coming, albeit risking their life and to spread the infection. I suppose that for a tourist, in these sad times, the idea of travelling to locations where hospitals are good and with ample capacity is more reassuring than travelling to small islands where local health facilities are inevitably limited.
Still, EU countries should be more appealing than some exotic locations, where everything is much less under control. I would much prefer to be on a small island in the southern Mediterranean than in a small island in Africa or Asia... At least, I do not need a good medical insurance here...

 

[Angelo Farina]

Dive boats have been fully booked out across the world during a pandemic. Or have you clearly overlooked that fact? I'm sure fellow scubaboard members already have or can tell you how good it is to be back in the water post covid isolation

Actually some Scubaboard members decided to fly to nice diving sites despite the risks, and here is one of their report:
COZUMEL – ALDORA – JUN26 – JUL06
It talks of almost empty flights, almost empty hotels, airports with a number of flights severely reduced...
Where did you read of "fully booked" touristic sites?
I would be very happy that the situation was fully normal, here the lack of international tourism is causing a lot of damage, as in most other countries where tourism is a relevant resource.
And albeit in some countries the numbers seem to suggest that the worst is passed, the risk that we come back to a mess when more people will travel again is still there.
I am truly with you when you say "think positive" and you advocated to avoid spreading panic, as there are already too many people scaring the community.
Still I do not see how a more positive view of the future can really change the things.
From my point of view, the only things which can really improve the situation are:
1) more money for researchers and for the free public health systems, instead of the systematic cuts happened in the last 15 years.
2) more test equipment and labs. Everyone should have been already tested with a PCR swab (for free), and the test should be repeated on everyone, every month, strictly insulating positives and tracing their contacts.
3) special laws reducing personal freedom and enforcing safe and healthy procedures, such as wearing masks, keeping distance, avoiding activities which involve promiscuity, and a mandatory tracking and contacting app on your smartphone.
4) special laws favouring "smart working" from home, remote learning systems for schools and universities, and generally removing the need for large part of travels done each day for meeting people, when we have now electronic systems which can avoid these needs almost entirely. Also the environment will be happy of reducing pollution from cars, aircraft, etc...
If all this will be done, then people will have to travel just for tourism. With proper measures in places, and much less people on aircrafts or trains, travelling will be reasonably safe, and at that point most of travels will be for tourism, not for for work. The ticket price will be much higher, of course, but that is not a problem: all the money saved not travelling for work all around the year can be saved for travelling for your holidays..
I want to be optimistic: the "new normal" world can be a nice place to live...

 

[tursiops]

Actually some Scubaboard members decided to fly to nice diving sites despite the risks, and here is one of their report:
COZUMEL – ALDORA – JUN26 – JUL06
It talks of almost empty flights, almost empty hotels, airports with a number of flights severely reduced...
Where did you read of "fully booked" touristic sites?
I would be very happy that the situation was fully normal, here the lack of international tourism is causing a lot of damage, as in most other countries where tourism is a relevant resource.
And albeit in some countries the numbers seem to suggest that the worst is passed, the risk that we come back to a mess when more people will travel again is still there.
I am truly with you when you say "think positive" and you advocated to avoid spreading panic, as there are already too many people scaring the community.
Still I do not see how a more positive view of the future can really change the things.
From my point of view, the only things which can really improve the situation are:
1) more money for researchers and for the free public health systems, instead of the systematic cuts happened in the last 15 years.
2) more test equipment and labs. Everyone should have been already tested with a PCR swab (for free), and the test should be repeated on everyone, every month, strictly insulating positives and tracing their contacts.
3) special laws reducing personal freedom and enforcing safe and healthy procedures, such as wearing masks, keeping distance, avoiding activities which involve promiscuity, and a mandatory tracking and contacting app on your smartphone.
4) special laws favouring "smart working" from home, remote learning systems for schools and universities, and generally removing the need for large part of travels done each day for meeting people, when we have now electronic systems which can avoid these needs almost entirely. Also the environment will be happy of reducing pollution from cars, aircraft, etc...
If all this will be done, then people will have to travel just for tourism. With proper measures in places, and much less people on aircrafts or trains, travelling will be reasonably safe, and at that point most of travels will be for tourism, not for for work. The ticket price will be much higher, of course, but that is not a problem: all the money saved not travelling for work all around the year can be saved for travelling for your holidays..
I want to be optimistic: the "new normal" world can be a nice place to live...

You make some very good comments. Unfortunately there is someone on this thread who just wants to ignore the reality, and is convinced that thinking positive will make it all go away. Silly, and dangerous. Spreading false positive information is as bad as spreading false negative information.

 

[stepfen]

Not to insult you or Greece, but there's a 100 other places I'd want to go to before Greece. Maybe some people got the same sentiment,... just being realistic

Maybe those (relatively) few who are coming here are the ones who can't go anywhere else because everything else is fully booked as you claim... I haven't thought it that way. Now I see... Thanks for the insight

 

[acidrush]

Maybe those (relatively) few who are coming here are the ones who can't go anywhere else because everything else is fully booked as you claim... I haven't thought it that way. Now I see... Thanks for the insight

I would be really interested to know where the fully booked places are. Tourism is quite dead in most of asia at the moment. Except for internal travels in bigger countries have not read about any fully booked places by international tourist.

 

[stepfen]

I would be really interested to know where the fully booked places are. Tourism is quite dead in most of asia at the moment. Except for internal travels in bigger countries have not read about any fully booked places by international tourist.

According to @DownUnderwater Dan you (and most if not all people in here including me) are simply wrong. As he wrote in a previous post:

Dive boats have been fully booked out across the world during a pandemic. Or have you clearly overlooked that fact?

When I told him that for example here in Greece which is one of the very few countries worldwide that allow tourism at the moment, tourist numbers are very much below "normal" (current estimates are around 10-20% at best) his reply was this:

Not to insult you or Greece, but there's a 100 other places I'd want to go to before Greece. Maybe some people got the same sentiment,... just being realistic

BTW I am not proud we are open to tourism at the moment (although both my and my wife's jobs are tourism related and our income has been greatly affected). We are and we will be paying the price for all this. For example hospitalized covid-19 cases doubled within the last 12 days while our borders are open for 16 days (from 1st of July). Some tourists are being tested upon arrival (and 10s of them are fount positive every day) but not all of them. Disaster waiting to happen.

According to DownUnderwater Dan I am just being pessimistic and misinformed by the media.

 

[tursiops]

According to @DownUnderwater Dan you (and most if not all people in here including me) are simply wrong. As he wrote in a previous post:



When I told him that for example here in Greece which is one of the very few countries worldwide that allow tourism at the moment, tourist numbers are very much below "normal" (current estimates are around 10-20% at best) his reply was this:



BTW I am not proud we are open to tourism at the moment (although both my and my wife's jobs are tourism related and our income has been greatly affected). We are and we will be paying the price for all this. For example hospitalized covid-19 cases doubled within the last 12 days while our borders are open for 16 days (from 1st of July). Some tourists are being tested upon arrival (and 10s of them are fount positive every day) but not all of them. Disaster waiting to happen.

According to DownUnderwater Dan I am just being pessimistic and misinformed by the media.

Realism sucks, and it is even worse when facts interfere with one's desire to ignore the pandemic and its global effects.

[SARCASM] It is absolutely amazing that so many countries and so many people and so many media outlets are -- without having noticeably communicated about this -- all trying to do this solely to prevent Trump's re-election. [/SARCASM]

 

[Damselfish]

The ticket price will be much higher, of course, but that is not a problem: all the money saved not travelling for work all around the year can be saved for travelling for your holidays.

Except for most people, their company is paying for the work travel. Not traveling for work doesn’t save people money.