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Original poster

Tourists in the UK?!

85 replies

pastaislife · 03/05/2021 09:31

Visited a popular beauty spot at the weekend in Wales, all allowed now of course. Was really shocked at the amount of overseas visitors there?! Loads of hire cars, overheard one family (maybe French/Spanish) talking about just arriving in the UK to a car park attendant. Just feels like all the restrictions still in place are pointless is travel is still happening? Has anyone else noticed this at typical touristy places?

OP posts:

4PawsGood · 03/05/2021 12:07

Sorry for the awful wording. I mean people arriving from any country have to quarantine. Except if you are Very Important

picturesandpickles · 03/05/2021 12:07

@4PawsGood

There are two types of quarantine aren’t there? Everyone has to quarantine at home, those coming from red list countries have to hotel quarantine.

Quarantine at home is completely ignorable. Yes you can technically be fined. No one is checking.

nonaomi · 03/05/2021 12:09

@picturesandpickles they are checking. And you have to take two tests.

RichardMarxisinnocent · 03/05/2021 12:11

Loads of hire cars
In what way does having a hire care indicate someone has come from abroad? People who live in the UK hire cars. I hired a car last year to drive to my dad's funeral, and would hire one if i wanted to go on a UK holiday somewhere without good public transports links

picturesandpickles · 03/05/2021 12:12

[quote nonaomi]@picturesandpickles they are checking. And you have to take two tests. [/quote]
Who is checking and how? Really - there are few staff to do this. Which service and how many new recruits for this task?

nonaomi · 03/05/2021 12:16

@picturesandpickles. They call you and you have to do two tests and face a huge fine if you break quarantine. I think most people comply.

QuentininQuarantino · 03/05/2021 12:25

You also have to show the receipt for the two tests that you have to pre book before entering the country.

Frazzled2207 · 03/05/2021 12:29

they could be (foreign born) British residents that have recently come back to the UK

However it is actually true that although we are legally not allowed to go abroad on holidays there has never been a ban on inbound tourism. That said many countries have their own bans on going abroad.

savethegrannies · 03/05/2021 12:35

If they have jumped through the various hoops required to get into the UK, I really don't see the issue.
I really hope this pandemic is not going to unwittingly lead to a rise in Xenophobia.
The early signs are not good.

Delatron · 03/05/2021 12:36

They call your mobile do they? So you could really be anywhere...

Delatron · 03/05/2021 12:37

I think it’s the fact it’s illegal for U.K. residents to travel abroad but not illegal to enter. You just need to do a ‘quarantine’.

SimonJT · 03/05/2021 12:39

My in laws are in the UK at the moment, they were called each day of their quarantine, they had to test negative and provide proof of a negative test before boarding their plane, they also had to take two tests during their 10 days of quarantine. They had to show electronic receipts for these tests to be allowed in to the UK.

My husband has a Swedish accent, I have a Nottinghamshire Pakistani hybrid, I look forward to people tutting that we dare have a day out in our own country.

4PawsGood · 03/05/2021 12:39

@Delatron

They call your mobile do they? So you could really be anywhere...

You’d have to be pretty ballsy to answer your mobile away from home and pretend to be at home though. What about outside noise? I’m sure people do, but maybe not as much as you’d imagine.

Flapflap1974 · 03/05/2021 12:43

I have been living in England for 20 years and I still have a very strong accent !

nonaomi · 03/05/2021 12:44

@Delatron

I think it’s the fact it’s illegal for U.K. residents to travel abroad but not illegal to enter. You just need to do a ‘quarantine’.

Oh stop with this .. ' quarantine '

Several posters have explained how it works and it is a serious thing.

nonaomi · 03/05/2021 12:45

@Delatron

They call your mobile do they? So you could really be anywhere...

Oh stop.

nonaomi · 03/05/2021 12:45

@savethegrannies

If they have jumped through the various hoops required to get into the UK, I really don't see the issue. I really hope this pandemic is not going to unwittingly lead to a rise in Xenophobia. The early signs are not good.

This ! Agreed !

allshutdown · 03/05/2021 12:54

If you put the enforcement of rules as the responsibility of those parties (travel companies, airlines, airports) who stand to lose out if those rules are enforced, the logical consequence is that the rules will not be enforced.

Even during lockdown there were reports of 800 tourists a day entering the UK.

Obviously it is introducing new variants into the Uk that will eventually undermine the vaccination programme and put us back to square one.

It is easy to see how to stop this from looking at other countries that do this properly. They limit the airports used, they quarantine everyone (because history has shown that people coming from high-risk areas are happy to divert via other routes to avoid quarantine), and most importantly they actually police it properly.

picturesandpickles · 03/05/2021 12:58

[quote nonaomi]@picturesandpickles. They call you and you have to do two tests and face a huge fine if you break quarantine. I think most people comply.[/quote]
You 'think' most people comply.

I 'think' too many people don't comply.

As no one has any stats, we are none the wiser.

NoBetterthanSheShouldBe · 03/05/2021 12:58

Mid April NT property in Cornwall ... 2 large French families sat together, say 6 adults 4 children aged between 5 and 10, none of the children appeared to speak English. Presumably school holidays there ... it wasn’t in Cornwall.

Often hear French or Italian spoken if I go to the tourist part of the city, and usually by people who patently don’t know their way about. It’s true they may be Down From London.

picturesandpickles · 03/05/2021 13:00

And worrying about insufficiently--enforced travel quarantine for both incoming UK and incoming non-UK travellers is not xenophobic ffs. That is a red herring.

nonaomi · 03/05/2021 13:00

@picturesandpickles but people automatically assume no one does it, right? The thread might as well have been called, let's do an Australia type situation and keep all those dirty immigrants out.

picturesandpickles · 03/05/2021 13:05

[quote nonaomi]@picturesandpickles but people automatically assume no one does it, right? The thread might as well have been called, let's do an Australia type situation and keep all those dirty immigrants out. [/quote]
I don't assume no one does it. I assume it is insufficiently enforced and therfore too few people do it.

It has nothing to do with immigration. You have no grounds to accuse people of being anti-immigrant because they think there is insufficient enforcement of border quarantine.

The traffic light system itself is absolute garbage to while we are at it.

nonaomi · 03/05/2021 13:07

@picturesandpickles come on..

' I heard people speaking another language so they must be outsiders '

Is basically what people are saying on this thread. They're making huge assumptions.

QuentininQuarantino · 03/05/2021 13:11

There has been a rise in xenophobia but obviously native resident Brits are unlikely to perceive it! It’s quite obvious to those who aren’t though.

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