Machu Picchu will officially reopen on 15 February. Peru's most iconic landmark is ready to welcome tourists again It was closed in January amid protests nationwide including nearby Cusco. The train service from Cusco restarted last week. A maximum of 2,500 people are allowed access daily. “Some tourists have already made their way to Machu Picchu. Cusco and the Sacred Valley are now fully open,” said Danny Callaghan, CEO of the Latin American Travel Association. “This is a big step forward towards a return to normal tourism services.” Martin Johnson, director of Latin Routes said, “It is great to see the protests calming down across the rest of the country.”

The Latin American Travel Association (LATA) wants members to put pressure on their MP to highlight the problems in the current red list strategy. They are urged to write to MPs to push parliamentarians for a review. Explaining the reasoning, Danny Callaghan, CEO of LATA, said: "The emergence of the Omicron variant has demonstrated how quickly a situation can develop and how the consequences for consumers can be significant. To be able to go on holiday to a country and then, out of the blue, to be faced with a multi-thousand-pound bill for hotel quarantine cannot be the right way to manage these issues." I would like to understand why, if I were to test positive for the Omicron variant today, I am able to quarantine at home, but a person arriving from a red list country is not trusted to do the same." "Imagine if the Government went around collecting Omicron-positive people from their homes, dragging them off to some shabby hotel for 10 days, and then charging over two thousand pounds for the privilege - there'd be uproar. Yet returning Brits are expected to do just that." We need a sensible approach that allows people to go home and quarantine there." LATA has provided members with a template letter to share with their MPs.

The Latin American Travel Association applauded the long wished for removal of the remaining seven countries on the UK government's Covid travel red list. Fully-vaccinated arrivals from Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Peru, Panama, Haiti and Venezuela will no longer have to quarantine in a hotel from next Monday. However the red list system will be maintained in case Covid cases rise or new risky variants are discovered. "I'm delighted that the remaining Latin American destinations are now coming off the red list. Latin American counties have excellent vaccination programmes and recognition of this is long overdue," said Danny Callaghan, the CEO of the Latin American Travel Association. "There has been extensive engagement with the UK Government to get to where we are, and I'd particularly like to mention the efforts of Natalia Royo, Panamanian Ambassador to the UK, who has taken the lead on bringing the UK and Latin American health departments together." "After many challenging months, LATA members will be pleased that they can look at taking their clients to this amazing part of the world once again. This is a very well-needed boost for the Latin American travel sector," Callaghan added. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the removal of the countries was a 'great boost for travel and all those people employed in the travel sector.' Shapps added: "We have been able to do this now because the variants of concern that we have been tracking are no longer of concern to the chief medical officers."

The Latin American Travel Association applauded the shrinking of the red list with several Latin American nations finally removed from next week. However,  Danny Callaghan, CEO of the Latin American Travel Association finds it puzzling why the remaining  seven countries  still on  the  red list are all located in the LatAm region. "We are pleased to see that a number of Latin American countries have finally been removed from the red list which will be a huge relief to our travel partners, many of whom are Latin American specialists and have not been able to trade at all for the last 18 months," Callaghan said. "However, it beggars belief that all the remaining seven countries on the red list are in, or off the coast of, Latin America. Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and Panama are all way ahead of other countries that have come off the list in terms of case rates, vaccination and testing regimes." "I am at an utter loss to understand how this continued poor treatment of Latin American countries can be justified." He says it is too little, too late with travel industry jobs still at risk. "These developments could very easily have been announced two weeks ago, before the end of furlough, and might well have saved jobs in our sector. The reality is nothing significant has happened in recent weeks to have changed the government position on restrictions. Instead, this poorly timed announcement shows how little value the government places on our industry." Callaghan says the government still isn't being transparent regarding the data it relies on to make these decisions. "I would also still like to see clarity from the UK Government on the criteria they use, particularly for the seven destinations left on the red list. Once again, we call for a clear and transparent explanation."