We analyze travel restrictions between European countries during the second wave of the Sars-CoV-2 pandemic. We suggest that at the dyadic level, travel restrictions are a consequence of the interplay between epidemiological, economic, and political logics. The epidemiological logic for travel restrictions suggests that source countries i implement travel restrictions for travelers from target countries j if the source country has lower incidence rates than the target country or if the source country goes into a hard lockdown. The economic logic for and against travel restrictions perceived travel restrictions as a consequence of a source’s dependence on tourism. If a source country depends on income from international tourism, it will implement relatively few travel restrictions when it has relatively high incidence rates. If however a source country dependent on tourism has relatively low incidence rates, it can use these as marketing advantage and defend those by implementing moderate travel restrictions for all target countries or even high travel restrictions for selected target countries. Finally, the political logic of travel restrictions suggests that state capacity influences the ability, but not the willingness of countries to implement travel restriction. We also explore whether a political stance against migration increases the political willingness to implement travel restrictions.

Preliminary estimates support our epidemiological and the economic case for travel restrictions. We do not yet have estimates for the political determinants of bilateral travel restrictions.