You have to feel for the owner of Kangarooski Travel and Tours in Belgrade. Just as international travel was easing its way back into our lives, and a few winter-inspired bookings were coming in for Bondi Beach and Alice Springs for late 2024 (you have to be optimistic), Novak Djokovic sparks a massive diplomatic hoo-ha.

Some Australians think the reports of a lice-infested quarantine hotel and prime minister Scott Morrisons’s cashing-in on the stand-off will damage Australia’s positive image overseas. Many Telegraph Travel readers are inclined to agree.

Conversely, many on social media are applauding the fact that the Australian authorities are treating the Serbian tennis ace like any other passenger without the proper paperwork – and declaring it would make them more likely to visit. Being fair dinkum and straightforward is an Aussie trademark; the Djokovic drama arguably adds to the brand.

The pandemic has already cost global tourism something in the order of £2.95 trillion, according to the United Nations. Visit Britain estimates the UK alone lost £146 billion in revenues over 2020 and 2021. It’s harder to quantify the long-term legacy of the pandemic, which has had an impact on the reputation of some countries that could perhaps be compared with a long-term military conflict or dictatorship.

China, still closed to tourists, with cities subject to sudden and aggressive lockdowns, will forever be known as the source of the worst disaster to befall the planet since the Second World War. A holiday is, for some people, a way of thanking a country; no one owes China any such kindness. 

Governments in Russia, Belarus, Myanmar, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and now Kazakhstan seem to have used the cover of the pandemic – and restrictions on travel and reporting – to perpetrate crimes against their own or other nation’s citizens (and, in Belarus’s case, despairing immigrants) and consolidate their authoritarian regimes. Will they open up after the pandemic and be as they were pre-2019? Will we forget the grim news reports and take off this year or next for holidays in Almaty, the Mekong and the Blue Nile Falls? 

Other nations closer to home have revealed underlying anti-democratic tendencies in response to the pandemic. According to research carried out by the Varieties of Democracy Institute, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Belgium were among European countries where freedoms were violated to some degree. The worst offender, however, was Djokovic’s beloved Serbia, where refugees, migrants and asylum seekers were selectively targeted and placed under military control during a so-called state of emergency.