The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) this week softened its travel advice for more than 100 countries around the world.

In total, 61 countries – including France, Spain and Italy – have been removed from the CDC’s level four "do not travel" category and placed instead under level three "reconsider travel" advice.

This means fully vaccinated travellers are no longer being advised against travelling to these destinations.

However, while the US’s advisory on travel to the UK was eased to level three a month ago, the UK’s own traffic light system categorises the US as amber, meaning travellers must self-isolate for 10 days upon their arrival and submit to tests on days two and eight of their quarantine.

In return, most travellers from the UK are still banned from the US under executive order 212(f), signed by the Trump administration, with limited exemptions.

Travel leaders and aviation chiefs this week united in calling for a breakthrough on restoring transatlantic travel between the UK and the US.

They are hopeful US president Joe Biden’s first overseas engagement, which will see him meet with Boris Johnson and other G7 leaders in Cornwall later this week, will provide an opportunity to negotiate a transatlantic travel corridor based on vaccination and testing between two of the nations furthest ahead with their Covid-19 vaccination programmes.

US Travel Association president and chief executive Roger Dow on Tuesday (8 June) welcomed a move by the Biden administration to set up a number of working groups to "determine a path to reopening international travel" with several nations and territories, including the UK and the EU.

"This announcement marks an important step forward in our national recovery from the pandemic," said Dow. "[We] believe a public-private taskforce can quickly develop a blueprint to reopen international inbound travel and jumpstart a sustained jobs and economic recovery.

"With decreased infection rates in the US, combined with the administration’s goal of having a critical mass of Americans fully vaccinated by 4 July, there is a true near-term opportunity to safely begin to welcome back international visitors."

Dow was among the contingent of travel and aviation leaders who came together on Monday to speak as one in pursuit of a UK-US travel corridor.