eight family members attended due to covid restrictions. the uk chancellor plans new measures to help people buy their own homes as he prepares his budget for next week. ministers in england launch a campaign to reassure parents it's safe for children to return to the classroom. festival organisers call on the government for more support to ensure events can take place this summer. more on those stories add 2pm. now on bbc news, global questions. covid—19 slammed the brakes on global tourism. but with vaccines now being rolled out around the world, there is optimism that international travel may soon take—off again. hello and welcome to global questions with me, zeinab badawi. covid—19 lockdowns have wreaked havoc on our economies and one area

that's been knocked sideways is the travel and tourism industry. one in ten people around the world work in the sector and it accounts for $9 trillion of global gdp. has the travel industry been transformed for ever? and could some of the changes actually be good for us? and the planet? that's global questions, travel in a post—global world. travel in a post—covid world. well, to bring you this edition of global questions, our two panellists and our questioners join us live via video link. let me tell you who is in the hot seat this week giving the answers. paul theroux is an internationally acclaimed american author and explorer who has been described

as the world's most perceptive travel writer. he has a new novel set in hawaii called under the wave at waimea out in april. and gloria guevara is ceo and president of the world travel and tourism council, which represents the travel and tourism private sector globally. so she is deeply involved in all the current negotiations for the future of international travel and previously gloria was minister of tourism in her native mexico and is credited with helping make that country a tourist hotspot. welcome to you both, gloria and paul and my questioners who join us from all over the world and to you wherever you are watching this. you can join the conversation... let's go to tanzania in east africa for our first question,

one we received on social media from francis mcallar, a tour guide. travel restrictions have caused job losses, family break—ups, bankruptcy, homelessness and most families i know in the tourism industry in tanzania are not able to put food on the table. can we replace quarantine restrictions with rapid testing to boost economies that rely on tourism like in tanzania? gloria guevara, what is your take on this? thank you for your questions and having me today. you are right, we need to make the invisible visible and testing is the best way to replace quarantine and allow mobility and travellers to be back in the countries. that will provide the opportunity to have travellers in tanzania that will share the income from developed nations to developing nations, which as tanzania and provide food on the table and help to recover the jobs and livelihoods that have been impacted.

we are in favour of testing so we can avoid exporting the virus and only those who have tested positive should be in quarantines and not the entire country. gloria, it sounds like you are kind of suggesting that some countries have gone a bit over the top when it comes to quarantine restrictions, locking people up in hotel rooms and all the rest of it? yes, there are some countries... currently, the assessment is based on countries and not an individual, which we disagree. we believe the assessment has to be based on individuals. individuals have covid, not entire countries. we cannot assume that entire population is affected. therefore, we need to do testing. and only isolate the people infected. for that, you need to do testing before departure, perhaps on arrival and identify the people infected. thank you. paul, 330 million people worldwide work in some way in the travel and tourism sector. they have really taken a terrible hit on their livelihoods.

yes, that's true, zeinab. in tanzania, and francis may or may not know that, but has 1.3 million tourists. lam in hawaii, now, this is a sunny morning in hawaii. we have 10 million tourists. the question is, can people put food on the table. if tourism is 17% of tanzania's gdp, what about the other 83%? they are putting food on the table, i presume. the economy is 83%. in hawaii, it is 21% of the economy. we have 77% is other than tourism. it is a very, very painful question about putting food on the table. but there are things beyond tourism.

i mean, the pain that people suffer from tourism isn't only related to that industry, there is a lot of other... businesses that can help people put food on the table. i agree with gloria about testing. i think she covered that very well. but tourism isn't the only factor in tanzania. as a matter of fact, tourism, relatively speaking, is a small area of tanzania's economy. let's go to sweden, yvette larsson. yvette, what do you want to ask gloria and paul?

all right, let me come to you, paul and perhaps abbreviate your question if you don't mind me asking you, yvette. there's been a lot of talk about vaccine passports. obviously, that's going to favour those countries who have had the massive vaccination programmes. do you like the idea of vaccine passports or do you think it is discriminatory? within and between countries? paul? it's not discriminatory. yvette asks a very interesting question, which is what about scenarios for the future of travel? the future of travel will be very much like the past of travel. 58 years ago, i went to africa. and i had this, i had to carry this. this is the who passport with diphtheria shots and yellow fever shots and tb and so forth. i was vaccinated two weeks ago. and i have this. this is the proof of my vaccination. so it's not discriminatory.

in the past, in 1963, when i first went to africa, i had to show that i had been vaccinated against tb, sleeping sickness, yellow fever and whatnot. so the future of travel will be very much like the past. might make you, but, paul, can i interact very quickly, can i interrupt very quickly, we have had the head of the world's largest vaccination company say the poorest countries won't be vaccinated until the end of 2024 at the earliest. we, here in the uk, can start travelling sometime this year but others have to wait at the back of the queue. that is correct. gloria, you are saying that is correct, do you like the idea of vaccine passports? i disagree totally and i am very aligned with what yvette is concerned. because vaccination as a requirement for travel requires the wrong behaviour and discrimination. and the reason is because supply is limited. paul was very fortunate to be vaccinated. however, that is not happening around the world. we need to concentrate

the vaccination in the vulnerable groups. yes, the vaccination has been very successful in the uk. vaccinating the vulnerable groups in the northern hemisphere. but there are a lot of developing countries that don't even have a calendar when they will be receiving the vaccination. and at the same time, when we think about 7 billion people around the world, it's going to take a while to vaccinate everyone. so we don't believe that vaccination should be a requirement for travelling, however we believe testing is the solution to resuming international mobility. even the experts are saying today that even if you have been vaccinating they cannot prove currently, that is what they are saying, that you cannot spread the virus, which is even worse. so we need to still include testing and make sure we don't discriminate amongst countries. all right. yvette. may i say one thing? sorry, go on, paul. this is a pandemic. you can't push this fast. i realise that everyone

is suffering, that business is bad, airlines, restaurants, hotels and the tourism industry is suffering. but if you push it too hard, it will only get worse. this is a pandemic of global proportions, and in the way that smallpox was in the past. all right, yvette, what do you think about what paul and gloria have said? you have two different opinions there. i'm just thinking, because i live in a very high—tech country, - sweden, and we have an infrastructure, - we could digitalise... you were talking about a digital passport, and that made me i think also about how easy iti would be for us to have that infrastructure, how easy it would be for us to implement that. _ that's why i also started - to think about the question. sounds like you're more swayed by what gloria was saying, then. yes. - all right. ok, that's one for you, gloria. sorry, paul.

ok, let's go to our next question, ahmed antarfrom dubai. and you actually work for an airline in dubai. your question, please. with my five years' experience in emirates airline, _ i can see that since the start. of this pandemic, air travel isn't going to be the same as before. will this lead us to a point - where only the wealthy people are able to travel? and will the aviation industry be left severely damaged? . all right. let me come to you then, gloria. i mean, two questions. will we go back to the days when only the rich could afford to travel? and what effect is this going to have on the aviation industry? that is a great question, ahmed, because the supply has been impacted. we have less flights, less planes, less due to the pandemic, and unfortunately, the support from governments have been different. in europe, for instance,

some governments have been supporting the airlines in the us, as well. but we have some other regions of the world where the airlines are closing and those employees have been furloughed or let go. so i kind of agree with your concern, but at the same time, i'm hoping for the recovery that we will see some and, at the same time, that you see more seats available, we will see also better pricing. and we don't go back to where we were in the �*80s, where flying was very expensive. but just for butjust for a but just for a few. we believe that we will have more seats, not as we had in 2019, perhaps when we had more than four billion people traveling around the world. but we would have a lot of connectivity that would allow people to resume mobility and travel again. paul, what do you say to ahmed? i agree that ahmed's concern is real. yes. does he think the aviation industry will be left severely damaged?

i think it will be severely damaged. that travel because of the airfares will were low in the 1970s. the jumbo jet allowed many, many more people to travel. so the the great difference between the before and after was cheap air fares or bigger planes. and i think that airlines will go out of business. and, as a matter of fact, wealthy people have always been the travelers who spend money. so, realistically, in the short term, anyway, it will be the privileged, the vaccinated, and the wealthy who get the flights. and the airlines that have support will survive. ahmed, not much comfort for you there in those answers. what do you think? i'm afraid that i totally. agree with paul about it. airlines will suffer, - will suffer, for a while. i believe the airline - will come stronger again

within, like, three to four... three to five years' from now, at least. all right. let's go to india, your question, please. due to the pandemic tourism has | reduced in significant numbers, i but this has also had an effect on our planet _ skies have been less polluted, rivers are as clear as ever, - l and tourist destinations are not i crowded any more, hence reducing the carbon footprint. now, since climate change is an alarming problem - at the moment, how do you think the travel industry can _ promote sustainable - tourism for the pandemic? let's go to you, paul. what's your answer? sustainable tourism ? i think it's very interesting. i'll tell you, i'm in hawaii and we had last year, or before the pandemic, ten million tourists. now, ten million is more than india. you have fewer tourists traveling to india than we have in hawaii.

and the damage to our ecosystem is considerable. gloria is very wise about how the airline industry might possibly recover, but it's the airline industry, it's travel, that has driven the pandemic. it's because of global travel and people traveling everywhere that the pandemic, that the virus, is in the four corners of the earth, the success of the travel industry means the success of the virus. so what i noticed in hawaii is the beaches are cleaner. there are fewer people, the roads are emptier the roads are emptier and life is better. and i think that in delhi i was told that you have cleaner air, you have less pollution, less of a carbon footprint because of the pandemic. how we can continue in this way is by examining the numbers.

the numbers of tourists have increased beyond the sustainability of the places that people are traveling to. so, in a way, many places have reached a critical mass in tourism. and now we're able to gauge, just because of the pandemic, we can gauge the effect of tourism on the ecosystem. and now, i mean, it's a cruel lesson, that people are dying and people have it... ok, gloria, i know as minister tourism in mexico, when you had that role that you did a lot on sustainable tourism. so, can the travel industry promote this, post pandemic? absolutely, it can. the sustainability agenda has been accelerated. this is a priority. and you have to understand — there is no tourism if we don't have natural resources. so, it is for the best of our interests to protect the natural resources. now, it needs to be sustainable tourism, it needs to be responsible from the traveller. and i believe tourism is part of the solution. i have seen that first—hand in my own country, where we had communities cutting trees to sell the wood.

and once we implemented a policy so that they were able to live from sustainable tourism, they were the first ones to protect, for instance, the case of the monarch butterfly, the ecosystem, because they were living from tourism. it is the same situation in tanzania, in africa and the national parks, where we have seen illegal poaching increasing, where we have seen illegal fishing increasing because of the lack of the funds from sustainable tourism. so, i believe tourism is part of the solution. we need to be included in the conversations, in the policy—making, and the travellers have a very important role here to play. because not only the climate and the environment, but also the social impact, the positive social impact, that tourism provides. and i totally disagree with paul — i'm sorry — about the pandemic is caused because of travel, no. the pandemic was spread because of the lack of implementation of protocols. there were countries that they didn't respect the protocols. they were not able to cut the people infected.

and that's why you have different results in different countries. all right. it doesn't look like he's going to shift on that one. but, anyway, thank you very much. you've heard what the panelists say. quick response from you? i totally agree, because i live in bangalore, india, - that is the silicon valley of india, and i can totally relate _ with skies being more i clearer and less polluted and no more pollution. thank you very much indeed. let's go to new zealand and to chandrika ghosh. chandrika, fire away, please. thank you, zainab. my question is, in a post—covid world where travel might be limited, we could be deprived of the unique cultural experiences we encounter only through travel, which makes us more tolerant and understanding of other societies and cultures. what kind of impact do you think this will have on our world? so, paul, you've written plenty of stuff about just how travelling, slow tourism, seeing real communities, you know, upfront has enriched your life. so are we going to lose that now?

we lost it, a while back. i mean, we lost it with the internet. when i first started to travel, i didn't have a cell phone, i didn't have a computer, i didn't have a telephone. i was in malawi, in central africa. i was teaching in a school. i wasn't travelling, but i was far away. so the blow has been softened. the culture shock has been softened by the ability of any traveller to call his or her mother or her mother. you can call home and you could talk to people or you could look on the internet. so, the cultural enrichment that we see today is not only travel, but it's also the connection that people have with the phone, with the internet and with the computer that people never leave home entirely. they're always connected to home.

i was disconnected. the era of being totally disconnected in a country, not able to phone home is gone. so the enrichment, i think it's always been somewhat mixed... and i think you can't lament it. that's just modernisation has allowed people to draw gloria, chandrika's question also talked about how being... travelling, being exposed to different cultures makes you more tolerant and understanding people of different backgrounds and ethnicities and so on. do you think we're in danger of losing that now because of less travel after the pandemic? i totally agree with chandrika, 100%, because travelling brings understanding and the more that we understand, then it creates empathy. and empathy, that's what's needed in the world. right? the more empathy that you have because you position yourself in the shoes of others,

you have a better understanding. the more that you travel and educated, the more sensitive you are. and the internet doesn't give you that. and a book doesn't give you that until you have a chance to experience and live that 100%. so, i also agree with paul that you have to experience that, but that empathy is very much needed right now around the world, especially because you have a lot of racism, you have a lot of nationalism and a lot ofjust looking inside and without understanding and reaching out to each other. chandrika, a quick riposte from you? thanks, i think nothing replaces the real experience that people spoke about. and i do think that the current world scenario is especially going to impact on young children who are growing up in this post—pandemic world from an understanding of societies and cultures in the absence of travel opportunities. as adults, we have memories from the past to go on, unlike young children who may have lost the opportunity to gain these experiences during some of their crucial formative years. all right, thanks very much.

you bring up the issue of young people and i know that todd carr in albuquerque, new mexico, united states, you've got a question related to young people. yes. thank you for the opportunity. i'm curious to know how the panellists believe the pandemic has affected and will continue to affect opportunities for young people to study and work abroad. gloria? there's a great question, todd, and i think that you're from a generation that is very fortunate to have the opportunities to work and to study abroad. i think right now we are in a pause, and because of the pandemic, and it might effect in the short term, but the medium and long term, i think that those opportunities will be resumed and probably even better. you're going to see more and more people wanting to travel and visit. i can tell you from my own children, my daughter wants to do a gap year in asia, go to korea, for instance, and she's looking forward to studying in other countries as well.

so, and that's because of the pandemic. so, i would say also that people now, that after this pause, they have a better appreciation and probably are going to explore more opportunities. so for now, yes, it has been impacted, but it's going to get better for sure. paul, do you agree with that? yes, i agree. but todd's in albuquerque. he could get this car and be in mexico in one day. less than a day, less than a day. he could get to the border and you could cross and find out... there's a huge, rich culture right on your doorstep. the word "abroad" in your question is interesting. travel isn't only abroad. todd could also get in his car and drive to arkansas. he could drive to mississippi and alabama. and when i travelled there some years ago in the deep south, i realised i was in a different country. so travel is is is not only the experience of another language,

it might be your own language or it might be next something next door. so the idea of studying and learning, which for the young people, a young person from albuquerque, you could go to montana, could go to canada, could go to mexico, could go to florida, could go to mississippi. alabama, to me, was a completely alien culture. so you don't have to think about turkey, china, india. you could think of a place nearer home that's just as as exotic. it just... it doesn't occur to people. i think these are really interesting points. - i work in international education, which has been decimated - by the travel restrictions, i and we're looking forward to an uptick in students going abroad. most definitely. we're just waiting to see when that time frame will occur. - all right. and just one quick final question from me to both of you, will travel ever be the same again in a post—covid world? very quickly, paul, in the long term?

yes, in the short term, i would say the next... i would say... five years, it will undergo a kind of transformation and it will get back to somewhere the way it was, but where we're in the middle of it now, we need to solve the problem people have to stop becoming infected. gloria, travelling in post—covid world, will it be the same? will it be better? i don't think that it will be the same, we're not going backwards, we're not going to how it was in 2019, i think we're going forward and it's going to be better more digital because the digital agenda was accelerated, it's going to be more sustainable because the sustainability agenda has been accelerated. you will see some protocols in place and your experiences after covid and you will see as seamless more, better experience more, i would say safer after covid. so we're not going back. i think we're going forward. all right. gloria guevara and paul theroux, my two panelists, thank you very much indeed.

and my questioners, who'vejoined us from lots of continents all over the world. that's all for this edition of global questions, travel in a post—covid world. we're giving you lots of food for thought this time. remember, we're the programme that brings you the trend lines behind the headlines. and if you want to be part of our programme, you can submit a question for the next programme to global questions. and next week, we'll be looking at what some people have described as a vaccine apartheid. so, until the next time, from me and the rest of the global questions team, goodbye. a chilly start to the day, frost and mist and fog around but most has melted away because of the sunshine.

it has been going at it and bringing us plenty of blue sky. a weak weather front across scotland and northern ireland bringing in more cloud and drizzle. a bit disappointing this afternoon. further south, these are the skies we are looking at and temperatures rising as well. fairly strong sunshine and mild for the time of year. it will stay like that for the next few days with high—pressure overhead, mainly dry and variable amounts of cloud and sunshine and chilly nights. the weather front has been ringing grey skies to scotland and northern ireland. this is the satellite picture will stop you can see how dull it is across western scotland and northern ireland. areas of cloud and mist and fog affecting england and wales but the majority is seeing some sunshine as is northern and eastern scotland. all that sunshine, we could see highs of 13 and 11; celsius, mild for the time of year after that chilly start this morning. this evening, we hold on to

cloud and clearer skies in england and wales for some low cloud in east anglia and the south—east by the end of the night but with clear skies pockets of frost and mist and fog and less cold in the north—west because of the cloud. high—pressure still with us into tuesday. we lose this weather front across northern areas and for sunday a better day for scotland and northern ireland. after the early cloud, that should melt away and we should see more sunshine generally. a bit more cloud for east anglia and the south—east. for most of england and wales, another sunny day after a chilly start. temperatures at 10 and may be 13 or 11; degrees. sunday night, we will start to see more cloud rolling into england and wales over night. further north, clearer skies. into england and wales over night. further north, clearerskies. it will be colder with some mist and fog. furthersouth will be colder with some mist and fog. further south where we have that cloud, 3—5 degrees will be the low but not as cold. monday morning

will be grey for many and some cloud to this upcoming week but the high pressure will state mainly dry and the best of the sunshine in northern and western areas. mild where we have the sunshine. the end of the week, signs that we will pick up a northerly wind which will turn things colder for all areas by friday into the next weekend. see you later.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines. sounding the last post about said captain tom moore, for his funeral, family members say his spirit will live on. the chancellor plans new measures to help people buy their own homes as he prepares his budget for next week. ministers in england launch a campaign to reassure parents it's safe for children to return to the classroom. anas sarwar has been announced as the new scottish labour leader. he takes charge of the party ahead of the scottish parliament elections due on 6th may.