Business travellers and performing artists to receive quarantine exemption
Business travellers and performing artists are to be exempted from quarantine in a bid to help revive the economy, Grant Shapps has announced. The Transport Secretary granted the exemption from 4am on Saturday to British and foreign business executives who could deliver “significant” benefit to the UK economy. UK and international performing artists, TV production staff, journalists and elite sportsmen or women newly-recruited to team “bubbles” will also gain exemptions, alongside the specialist staff already free from quarantine. The move was recommended by the Government’s global travel taskforce which warned business travel would be the slowest to recover after lockdowns. Business travellers accounted for 22% of all the UK’s 38m inbound visits a year before the pandemic and contributed GBP4.5b to the economy. However, most inbound business travellers spend fewer than three days in the UK, so that even the reduction of quarantine to five days through the introduction of test and release from December 15 was unlikely to have had a major impact. The transport department has devised three categories to define “significant benefit,” starting with senior executives of multinational firms visiting their UK subsidiaries with more than 50,000 employees in Britain, whose jobs could be safeguarded by their trip. Second are returning UK based executives whose exemption would be granted for “specific activity” which would “create and/or preserve” 50,000 UK jobs. Third are foreign-based executives or their representatives seeking to make a GBP100,000-plus investment in the UK, place a contract with a UK business with a value of GBP100,000 or more, or entrepreneurs setting up a new business within the UK that would create 50,000-plus jobs.<br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/imagelibrary/news/hot-topics/2020-12-04/general/business-travellers-and-performing-artists-to-receive-quarantine-exemption
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Business travellers and performing artists to receive quarantine exemption
Business travellers and performing artists are to be exempted from quarantine in a bid to help revive the economy, Grant Shapps has announced. The Transport Secretary granted the exemption from 4am on Saturday to British and foreign business executives who could deliver “significant” benefit to the UK economy. UK and international performing artists, TV production staff, journalists and elite sportsmen or women newly-recruited to team “bubbles” will also gain exemptions, alongside the specialist staff already free from quarantine. The move was recommended by the Government’s global travel taskforce which warned business travel would be the slowest to recover after lockdowns. Business travellers accounted for 22% of all the UK’s 38m inbound visits a year before the pandemic and contributed GBP4.5b to the economy. However, most inbound business travellers spend fewer than three days in the UK, so that even the reduction of quarantine to five days through the introduction of test and release from December 15 was unlikely to have had a major impact. The transport department has devised three categories to define “significant benefit,” starting with senior executives of multinational firms visiting their UK subsidiaries with more than 50,000 employees in Britain, whose jobs could be safeguarded by their trip. Second are returning UK based executives whose exemption would be granted for “specific activity” which would “create and/or preserve” 50,000 UK jobs. Third are foreign-based executives or their representatives seeking to make a GBP100,000-plus investment in the UK, place a contract with a UK business with a value of GBP100,000 or more, or entrepreneurs setting up a new business within the UK that would create 50,000-plus jobs.<br/>
