Speaking during the Abta Travel Convention on Wednesday (14 October) Shapps insisted a huge amount of work had been taking place “behind the scenes” to speed up the return of overseas travel, as he insisted the new Global Travel Taskforce announced last week would help accelerate the plans.
The new test and release regime will mean “a single test for international arrivals around a week after arrival”, and he said the department for transport and the department of health and social care had been working "extensively with health experts and the private testing sector on the practicalties of testing arrivals from overseas".
“This will include the feasibility of one test taken after for a period of self isolation, provided by the private sector and at the cost to the passenger, he added, with “a big priority being to ensure that any new testing regime international travel does not impact on NHS capacity”.
In addition to this, Shapps said the government was “also working on schemes with partner countries to establish whether self isolation could take place before departure”.
“The main point being that we will consider all options that increase tourism and business travel,” he added, “but do so safely and thereby help the sector recover from this pandemic.”
Elsewhere Shapps said the government was also “preparing an aviation recovery plan setting out how we can boost air travel, protect jobs, and continue to bear down on the spread of the virus.”
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