The UK government has given more details about which ‘high value’ business travellers will be exempt from quarantine on return to England but the restrictions look almost impossible to police, says the CEO of the Institute of Travel Management (ITM).
The new rules announced today and which come into force from tomorrow allow certain senior executives who are likely to bring significant economic benefit to the UK to avoid going into quarantine.
The government has said that the exemption will be only be available where the business activity requires an executive’s physical presence and cannot be done remotely and where the work they are doing has a greater than 50 per cent chance of either:
• creating or preserving at least 50 UK-based jobs in either an existing UK-based business which has at least 50 employees or a new UK business within one year of the date of their arrival in the UK; or
• purchasing goods or services from a UK based business with at least 50 employees - the order must be worth at least £100 million, or the order would be likely to create or preserve 50 or more jobs in that business.
Arriving business travellers will also need to carry a letter signed by a company director from the businesses they are visiting.
The letter must be written on company headed notepaper of the signing senior executive’s firm and include the following information:
• the full name of the senior executive undertaking exempt activity;
• date of birth;
• passport number;
• UK address at which the senior executive is otherwise self-isolating;
• the specific activity/activities to be undertaken, their duration, the date/s and location/s in which they will take place;
• contact details including a direct phone number for the senior executive signing the letter and for their business;
• a short explanation which gives evidence of the need for the activities to be performed by the senior executive at the specified location/s and why the activity is more likely than not to deliver significant economic benefit to the UK.
The traveller must still self-isolate in England except when carrying out the specific activities that are likely to bring significant economic benefit to the UK.
Scott Davies, CEO of the ITM, said: “The acknowledgement of business travel as a critical facilitator of economic growth is certainly welcomed by ITM’s members. The rather draconian and narrow definitions of permissible types of travel and traveller are overly complex and all but impossible to qualify and police.
“By its nature, managed business travel usually involves the expertise of travel management companies whose tracking data, safeguards and procedures minimise risk. Business travel is not a privilege or a perk. It is essential to commercial enterprises, charities, the public sector, etc. The list is almost endless and so a review of the requirements announced would be welcomed by the ITM.”
American Express GBT said the announcement of the new rules yesterday led to increased activity among clients.
Martin Ferguson, the company’s VP public affairs, said: “We know there is lot of pent-up demand. This morning I was contacted by dozens of customers looking for more detail about the government proposal because they have people that want to travel right now. My colleagues in the client partnerships team have been inundated with calls and emails.
“As of this afternoon, we have some more detail about how the government is defining a business traveller and what documents one needs to travel. The information is still quite opaque and open to interpretation. But look, it’s a start. We’ve offered to help government bring more clarity to this policy in the coming weeks should they require our support.
“Beyond this development, we know a bilateral air corridor between the UK and the US is a big priority for the government and hope to see a pilot air corridor in place sooner rather than later.”