A good start?

The COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on all segments of travellers, students included. There were calls for semesters to be delayed amid the ongoing travel and visa ban, which was true across the world. Students were dismayed and particularly worried and hassled about their future. And while the world is more online today than offline, like travel, education, too, cannot be a long-distance affair alone. And so, the plight of students has been heard by every nation, and they are gradually opening to the segment for travel. Students are ecstatic that there is finally light at the end of the tunnel, but some hurdles are yet to be crossed.

While governments are aggressively holding programmes to get their student travellers vaccinated, the future of the vaccine itself is in disarray. The acceptance of Covishield over Covaxin is already worrisome, and in between all the chaos students are perplexed if they will need to get vaccinated again in their destination country. Long queues have been seen in vaccination centres of India for students, but the future is still a bit uncertain. Some students have also already faced the hassle of transiting through certain countries basis their visa and vaccination status.

But, this could well be a litmus test for the travel segment at large. With a limited number of student travellers, countries have the chance to iron out any shortcomings in their travel management. Visa application and issuance centres need to be strengthened with more manpower, airports need to align themselves with the wave of travellers that is expected to gush in as soon as guidelines are eased some more, and tour operators need to be well-equipped to handle the traffic.

Another important criteria, especially for India, is to vaccinate the entire tourism and hospitality staff as frontline workers, on priority. This is a timeconsuming process and as dynamic as the virus is, some programmes need to be kick-started as soon as possible. We hope the industry and the authorities take cognizance of the fact that people are going to travel with a vengeance and that the beginning of student travel is a curtain raiser to what’s to come.