Countries eager to reopen to travel as pandemic recedes

Mexico has no flight restrictions, no requirements for visitors to pass a test or quarantine upon arrival. That has kept a reduced but steady flow of tourists, especially to beach destinations.

Mexico’s laid-back approach, however, could be creating a backlash in the Caribbean coast state of Quintana Roo, which includes Cancún and Cozumel and where tourism accounts for 87% of the economy. Infection and hospitalization rates are rising, and stricter capacity limits have been imposed in public places.

“If nothing is done right now in reducing activities in public, this trend will grow and grow and grow and grow,” the federal government’s point man on the pandemic, Assistant Health Secretary Hugo López-Gatell, warned this month.

The U.S. continues to bar most visitors from Europe, China, India, Brazil and other places. Inbound international travelers, including American citizens, must pass a COVID-19 test before boarding flights. The State Department discourages foreign trips, labeling most of the world’s countries high-risk.

The border between the U.S. and Canada remains closed to nonessential travel through June 21.

Domestic air travel in the U.S. is nearly back to 2019 levels, but travel-industry groups are growing impatient with what they see as an overly timid response by the Biden administration to allowing more international visitors.