More and more countries are opening their borders to tourists. UN World Travel Organisation (UNWTO) data shows a 64 per cent jump in international arrivals in the first quarter of 2022 compared to 2021. Top officials of the UN agency had their first in-person meeting on June 15, 2022 in Maldives, where they shared the good news.

Here's the not-so-good: COVID, with the latest variants, is still an evolving health concern, but the world has already learnt much from the pandemic.

How to lift travel restrictions further? Officials underscore the importance of working together. Restarting the recovery process for tourism — a sector estimated to employ 271 million people across the globe — requires collaboration, open data sharing in order to continue to boost confidence in international travel, they said.