61 percent of countries in Asia have not opened up their borders to travelers, making it the most closed-off region for tourists in the world together with the Middle East, where 62 percent of countries are sticking to the closures. This is according to a report by the U.N. World Tourism Organization on COVID-19 travel restrictions released this month.
This also makes Asia the continent with some of the longest border closures of the pandemic. Out of 27 countries where borders have been completely closed for 30 weeks or more, 19 are in Asia.
By contrast, only 17 percent of destinations in Europe have not opened up, which applies to non-EU countries like Ukraine and Belarus as well as Hungary, which is the first Schengen country to have resealed its borders.
According to the report, complete border closures remained in place in 93 countries as of September 1, down from a high of 165 in mid-May. Most countries that eased restrictions were advanced economies and those with working hygiene concepts, according to the UNWTO. Dependence on tourism and how many cases a country experienced lately were less indicative of the easing of border restrictions.
This chart shows the countries which have not eased COVID-19 travel restrictions and regional totals (as of September 1, 2020).
