On Monday, a group of 26 travel industry organizations, including the American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA) and U.S. Travel Association, sent a letter to the White House urging “the federal government to partner with us to develop, by May 1, 2021, a risk-based, data-driven roadmap to rescind inbound international travel restrictions issued under section 212(f) of the Immigration and National Act (INA).”
The goal of developing the metrics, benchmarks and timeline, according to the coalition are to:
- Maintain strong risk-based protections against the spread of COVID-19 and importation of new variants
- Encourage business and leisure travelers to prepare for and comply with requirements for a safe reopening of inbound and outbound international travel by the summer of 2021
- Accelerate rehiring and economic recovery in the travel and aviation industries
The coalition set a deadline to have the guidelines created by May 1 so that international inbound visitation could resume for summer 2021 (“if vaccine distribution and epidemiological trends continue in a positive direction”). The group is asking the Biden Administration to maintain inbound international testing, except if a traveler is fully vaccinated (while also avoiding vaccine requirements as a prerequisite to travel); develop at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) COVID-19 health credentials (CHC) technologies to securely validate both test results and vaccination history; prioritize the resumption of international travel at the upcoming G-7 meeting; and more.
“Travel and tourism is the industry hardest hit by the economic fallout of COVID, and the damage is so severe that a broader economic recovery will stall if we can’t get travel off the ground,” said U.S. Travel Association president and CEO Roger Dow, in a statement in addition to the letter. “Fortunately, enough progress has been made on the health front that a rebound for domestic leisure travel looks possible this year, but that alone won’t get the job done. A full travel recovery will depend on reopening international markets, and we must also contend with the challenge of reviving business travel.”
U.S. Travel added that if nothing is done to lift international travel bans and bring back demand, a total of a 1.1 million American jobs will not be restored and $262 billion in export spending will be lost by the end of 2021. With that said, if travel from the top inbound markets to the U.S is able to safely resume by July 4, 2021 and reach an average of 40 percent of 2019 levels for the remainder this year, it would accelerate economic recovery by adding $30 billion in incremental spending and bringing back 225,000 American jobs.
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