Stage 3 of the Nor­we­gi­an plan to lead the coun­try back to nor­mal life will come on Sun­day, as the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment has announ­ced in a press release. This first press release includes steps for the coun­try back towards nor­mal life and eco­no­my.

Two Oslo press releases

The­re is a second offi­ci­al press release, which is important for Spits­ber­gen tou­rism, inclu­ding ship-based tra­vel­ling. So far, a ban is in force that makes crui­sing over seve­ral days lar­ge­ly impos­si­ble. This will chan­ge on Sun­day (20 June), but this comes with quite a bit of small print and the gene­ral deve­lo­p­ment of the coro­na pan­de­mic will con­ti­nue to govern life in gene­ral and tou­rism in par­ti­cu­lar. This lea­ves a num­ber of ques­ti­on­marks, but the pos­si­bi­li­ty of some Spits­ber­gen trips later this sea­son is, at least, not com­ple­te­ly unrea­li­stic.

Nor­way makes steps to nor­mal life and re-opens the pos­si­bi­li­ty for crui­ses. It remains to be seen if “Spits­ber­gen under sail” will be pos­si­ble in 2021.

Gene­ral rest­ric­tions on inter­na­tio­nal tra­vel­ling remain in force

For inter­na­tio­nal tou­rists, it is important to noti­ce that the strict ent­ry rest­ric­tions remain in force until fur­ther noti­ce. Non-Nor­we­gi­an tou­rists may enter the coun­try only if they come from “yel­low count­ries” on the FHI-map. Curr­ent­ly, most of Euro­pe is red, and who can tell what the sum­mer will bring con­side­ring the del­ta mutant of the coro­na virus that is con­nec­ted to incre­asing infec­tion figu­res in the UK? It is uncer­tain when Nor­way will per­mit at least ful­ly vac­ci­na­ted tou­rists from “red count­ries” to enter Nor­way again.

Curr­ent­ly, Nor­way only accepts vac­ci­na­ti­ons regis­tered in Nor­way. This includes obvious­ly vac­ci­na­ti­ons given in Nor­way; vac­ci­na­ti­ons given in other count­ries can, as of now, only be regis­tered in Nor­way by per­sons who are regis­tered in the coun­try with a per­so­nal num­ber (“fød­sels­num­mer” or “D-num­mer”). The digi­tal Euro­pean vac­ci­na­ti­on cer­ti­fi­ca­te may (or may not) faci­li­ta­te this also for others, but that remains to be seen – as so much the­se days.

It is, howe­ver, clear that Nor­way will only accept vac­ci­na­ti­ons that are licen­sed by EMA (Euro­pean Medi­ci­nes Agen­cy) for use in Euro­pe. Other vac­ci­na­ti­ons such as Sput­nik-V or Sino­vac will curr­ent­ly not give tra­vel­lers any advan­ta­ges (other than the actu­al pro­tec­tion against infec­tion and dise­a­se, of cour­se!).

No test­ing requi­re­ment befo­re flight to Lon­gye­ar­by­en for vac­ci­na­ted tra­vel­lers

Ful­ly vac­ci­na­ted / reco­ver­ed tra­vel­lers (“ful­ly pro­tec­ted”) tra­vel­lers do not need to test any­mo­re befo­re fly­ing from main­land Nor­way to Lon­gye­ar­by­en. That is good news for the local tou­rism indus­try, whe­re many hope that Nor­we­gi­ans will spend their sum­mer holi­days in Spits­ber­gen, whe­re 83,5 % of the adult popu­la­ti­on (18 and older) are now vac­ci­na­ted. But test­ing requi­re­ments for inter­na­tio­nal tra­vel­lers upon ente­ring the coun­try is ano­ther thing.

New rules for Spits­ber­gen-tou­rism

The fol­lo­wing rules will app­ly from Sun­day for tou­rism and crui­sing in Spits­ber­gen:

• Tour ope­ra­tors will need to ope­ra­te accor­ding to safe hygie­ne stan­dards accor­ding to the same rules as on the main­land (no spe­cial rules any­mo­re).
• Hotels may use up to 90 % of their capa­ci­ty and keep the remai­ning 10 % to accom­mo­da­te tra­vel­lers who need to qua­ran­ti­ne.
• Char­ter flights from Nor­way to Lon­gye­ar­by­en are allo­wed again, but not from other count­ries.
• Ships that ope­ra­te in Spits­ber­gen need to pro­vi­de a dise­a­se pro­tec­tion plan that is accept­ed by the Sys­sel­mann. Ships will not be able to use their full capa­ci­ty, but 90 % or less depen­ding on the pro­tec­tion sta­tus of all peo­p­le on board.
• If the­re are peo­p­le on board who are not ful­ly immu­nis­ed, then the num­ber of peo­p­le on board is limi­t­ed to 200 and the­re is a requi­re­ment to do tests befo­re depar­tu­re. This is valid for Nor­way and for Spits­ber­gen.
• If ever­y­bo­dy on board is ful­ly immu­nis­ed, then the­re may be up to 2000 peo­p­le on board (yes, two thousand!). But in any case, only up to 90 % of the capa­ci­ty may be used, or less, depen­ding on the indi­vi­du­al case.
• In case of a coro­na infec­tion or a sus­pi­ci­on, ships need to return to the main­land or their home port, rather than to Lon­gye­ar­by­en whe­re health ser­vice capa­ci­ties are very limi­t­ed.
• In case of a coro­na infec­tion or a sus­pi­ci­on, ever­y­bo­dy needs to stay on board until per­mis­si­on to lea­ve the ship is given by rele­vant aut­ho­ri­ties.
• Crui­se ships with an inter­na­tio­nal itin­era­ry need to com­ply to the requi­re­ments to qua­ran­ti­ne accor­ding to the FHI-map as soon as the­re is anyo­ne on board who needs to qua­ran­ti­ne.

Com­ment

So the­re is now final­ly infor­ma­ti­on for tou­rism and ship-based tra­vel­ling in Spits­ber­gen, some­thing we have been wai­ting for for quite a while now as the sea­son would nor­mal­ly have star­ted weeks ago alre­a­dy. Many ship owners and tour ope­ra­tors have can­cel­led their arc­tic sum­mer sea­son alre­a­dy a while ago. For tho­se who still have trips in their sche­du­les, it remains to be seen what will actual­ly be pos­si­ble.

A lot will obvious­ly depend on the deve­lo­p­ment of the pan­de­mic. If you want to tra­vel to Nor­way inclu­ding Spits­ber­gen, then you’d bet­ter come from a “yel­low” coun­try and make sure it remains yel­low until you have left.