British Travel Influencers Are Getting Roasted For Treating Dubai Like ‘The Covid Casablanca’

There isn’t a single person out there right now who doesn’t wish they could jump on a plane and go on a vacation. We mean a real vacation. We’re not talking about queuing in endless lines while braving COVID-era airports or wearing a face shield while you respectively distance from locals.

That’s not a vacation, it’s just a bad idea. We’re in a global pandemic, remember? And the fact is, right now travel is extremely limited — for good reason.

Of course, since the early days of the pandemic, travel influencers have pushed the boundaries of social distancing restrictions. Considering that they are masters of branding, it’s no surprise they keep trying to Facetune COVID out of existence, but if recent events have shown us anything, pretending a thing that is clear to everyone doesn’t exist is stupid, at best, and dangerous, at worst.

Don’t tell that to the British travel influencers taking gigs with Dubai Tourism and highlighting their adventures on social media. They’re posting and tagging up a storm, much to the chagrin of their country-folk. According to the BBC and Dazed, over the past couple of weeks, British influencers and stars from reality shows like Love Island, Geordie Shore, and The Only Way Is Essex have been hitting the beach and filling up their feeds with vacation shots and party images straight from Dubai, UAE. (It seems that this was a state-sanctioned series of travel promotions, as indicated by the tagging of @VisitDubai and the proliferation of the #VisitDubai and #MyDubai hashtags.)

The plot twist came just yesterday, when it was announced that Dubai has officially been removed from the UK’s safe travel list after a recent uptick of COVID-19 cases in the United Arab Emirates with a significant portion coming from, get this, imported cases. And considering that Europe has also banned travelers from the UK, that leaves the influencers with one of two options: stay in Dubai or face a 10-day quarantine back home.

As you’d expect, the people of Twitter are having a field day making fun of the rare moment of fustration that has fallen upon the most influential, beautiful, privileged (and sometimes selfish) humans on the planet. All Credit to Clive Martin, who came up with “COVID Casablanca,” which is just f*cking golden.

Check in on some of the jokes below.

https://twitter.com/thugclive/status/1348698189080236037

https://twitter.com/jurgenkloppTD/status/1349010261424930819

https://twitter.com/tieganpricexx/status/1349092962941231104

https://twitter.com/harriet_tyce/status/1347457173845143554