- Only about one in eight Americans plans a spring break travel this year
- Americans remain wary about traveling amid the COVID-19 pandemic and prefer to defer their travel plans until the process of vaccinating the populace is more complete
- The latest updates to US Travel guidance mainly reflect the growing availability of COVID-19 vaccines, and include strong encouragement from the travel industry for every American to get vaccinated as soon as they are able
Headed into the spring break travel season, the U.S. Travel Association on Thursday released new updates to its “Travel in the New Normal” health and safety guidance, first released in May and last updated in November prior to the holiday travel surge.
The latest updates to the guidance mainly reflect the growing availability of COVID-19 vaccines, and include strong encouragement from the travel industry for every American to get vaccinated as soon as they are able.
But the latest data underscores that it is far from clear when demand for travel will rebound on its own and travel jobs can begin to be restored. Travel leaders say aggressive policy action is still needed to help travel employers keep their doors open, or else many will be at risk of shuttering and their jobs will be lost permanently.
“Travel is a central pillar of the U.S. economy, so an overall recovery will only be possible if Washington moves quickly to keep the industry on its feet,” said U.S. Travel Association President and CEO Roger Dow. “A true travel comeback can also only happen once the pandemic is decisively behind us, and we all have an important part to play: get vaccinated as soon as you can, and don’t become complacent about mask-wearing and other important health practices.”
Continued relief to travel through the Paycheck Protection Program and tax incentives to help travel-dependent businesses and spur individual travel demand are among the provisions the industry is requesting from Congress.
