You can now go (almost) anywhere in Austria without 3G requirements. To enter the country, however, you still need proof that you have been vaccinated, recovered or tested. The travel industry is upset by this and is demanding the “immediate lifting” of this restriction. There is no factual justification “for such a tough measure,” according to the chairman of the WKÖ professional association of travel agencies, Gregor Kadanka, and the chairwoman of the professional association of the hotel industry, Susanne Kraus-Winkler.
“No longer acceptable”
“In the current situation, the 3G rule is no longer acceptable for foreign guests who want to vacation in Austria or for Austrian travelers returning,” criticized travel agency industry representative Kadanka on Thursday in a joint broadcast with Kraus-Winkler. The pandemic situation has not only eased in Austria. Most countries of origin and travel countries currently have even lower corona incidence numbers than Austria, the trend is clearly pointing downwards everywhere.
“So where is the factual justification for this restriction?” Kadanka wants to know and threatened legal action against it if necessary. “We hope that the Minister of Health will give in here, otherwise our only last resort is to consider a review of the proportionality of the regulation through legal action.”
“No objective justification”
The hotel industry also sees itself at a serious disadvantage in international competition as a result of the regulation that continues to apply. The entry restrictions imposed by the 3G rule are actively creating a competitive disadvantage for incoming tourism and thus also for all Austrian hotels, stressed Kraus-Winkler.
“Such a tough, far-reaching restriction requires an objective justification – there isn’t one in this case,” appealed the representative of the hotel industry in the Austrian Economic Chamber to Health Minister Johannes Rauch (Greens), the 3G rule “now in time for the summer to abolish”. Incoming tourism and domestic hotels should not “suffer the next avoidable damage”.
“Discriminatory and unjustifiable”
Meanwhile, local retailers are again calling for an end to the mask requirement in supermarkets and drugstores. Health Minister Johannes Rauch (Greens) recently announced that the FFP2 mask requirement for employees in “vital trade“To be maintained at least until July 8th. This is “disproportionate, discriminatory and epidemiologically not justifiable,” said Rainer Will, Managing Director of the Trade Association, in a broadcast on Thursday.
Around 130,000 employees in the “essential trade“We would have to wear a mask all the time despite rising temperatures and falling numbers of cases, Will criticized. WKÖ trade chairman Rainer Trefelik also called for an early end to the mask requirement as a whole at an online press conference on Thursday trade.
On Tuesday, the GPA union and the retail chains Lidl, Rewe, Hofer and Spar had asked the federal government and Health Minister Rauch in particular to make masks compulsory in the trade to end.
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Source: Nachrichten
