Travel and Tourism Industry
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Travel and Tourism Industry.
COVID-19 has devastated the travel and tourism sector, putting approximately 120 million jobs at risk, cause economic damage of over $1 trillion. According to a projection report by the World Tourism Organization, spending by international tourists might drop between $910 and $1200 million in 2020, depending on when restrictions on international travel will be lifted (UNWTO, 2020). Such a drop will set back the tourism industry by twenty years. The emergence of the Coronavirus pandemic has significantly disrupted the travel and tourism industry in the United States. The government has introduced travel restrictions as a means to contain the disease. This has forced airlines to cut flights and lead to the cancellation of holidays and trips by tourists. Unable to ferry individuals over air due to reduced demand for travel by coronavirus, passenger planes have opted to use their fleets to transport cargo as a way to compensate for revenue loss. Without the vital tourism sector, many economies, including the U.S., have experienced increases in unemployment rates and dramatic contractions in GDPs (Wyoming Office of Tourism, 2016).
Stakeholders in the travel and tourism industry believe that reviving the industry relies on continuous funding programs from the government. The government should support the tourism sector through incentives such as free travel to encourage visiting. For instance, the Icelandic government has currently invested $9 million in a project that distributes free travel vouchers to Ireland’s residents and citizens to boost its domestic tourism (McClanahan, 2020). Wales’ government has invested in £1.7 billion to help sustain the tourism sector, the most generous support in the U.K. so far, which is meant to revive the tourism and hospitality industry and maintain sustainability (BBC News, 2020). The United States should also continue to fund the tourism industry and use its diplomatic measures to request various governments and stakeholders to ensure that freight lines remain efficient and open.
References
BBC News. (2020, October 16). Covid: “Dark days” for tourism in Wales, but some “silver lining.” BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-54562701
McClanahan, P. (2020, October 18). Iceland Tourism Prepares for a Comeback. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/travel/iceland-tourism-pandemic.html
UNWTO. (2020). Tourism and COVID-19 – unprecedented economic impacts | UNWTO. Www.Unwto.org. https://www.unwto.org/tourism-and-covid-19-unprecedented-economic-impacts
Wyoming Office of Tourism. (2016, May 19). Tourism Matters. Travel Wyoming. https://travelwyoming.com/industry/tourism-matters