London: Former UK health secretary Matt Hancock's invitation to a conference for the travel industry in Qatar has been revoked as a result of his leaked WhatsApp messages regarding COVID-19 restrictions.
Hancock will speak as a guest speaker at the Institute of Travel and Tourism's annual conference, which will take place in Doha in June, the organization said on Wednesday.
A few days later, Hancock was seen making jokes about hotel quarantine with Cabinet Secretary Simon Case in leaked WhatsApp messages, according to The Independent on Monday.
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The UK government enforced hotel exclusion zones in February 2021, a month after trying to introduce a 19-week ban on global leisure travel.
Hancock stated in his letter, "We are giving big families all the suites and putting pop stars in the box rooms.
"I just want to see some faces of people coming out of first class and into a Premier Inn shoe box," Case retorted.
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The aviation industry was also cited by the former health secretary as being "totally offside" and "completely unhelpful," according to The Independent.
ITT chair Steven Freudmann stated regarding the choice to revoke Hancock's invitation: "The decision was triggered by the publication of his WhatsApp messages.
We now know that he is not a supporter of the travel industry, as shown by some of his private messages and the barrage of criticism he has received on social media.
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We had hoped to focus on the lessons learned from managing the pandemic, but in the end, we simply decided that it would be unfair to our other 25 distinguished speakers if Hancock received all of the attention.