After months of working behind the scenes to create a plan that would ease travel restrictions for international travel to the U.S., a coalition of 24 trade organizations has gone public with its blueprint for a safe restart to U.S. inbound tourism.
The U.S. Travel Association, American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA) and Airports Council International are among the organizations involved in creating what coalition leaders have called “A Framework to Safely Lift Entry Restrictions and Restart International Travel.”
Roger Dow, U.S. Travel Association president and CEO, announced the public release of this framework during a press conference on July 7.
“We’ve learned so much over the past 16 months, [that] the health risk is actually becoming more and more minimal, but the economic cost of doing nothing is staggering,” Dow said.
We’ve learned so much over the past 16 months, [that] the health risk is actually becoming more and more minimal, but the economic cost of doing nothing is staggering.
He added that for each week that travel restrictions remain in place, the U.S. economy is losing $1.5 billion in spending just from Canada, the EU, and the U.K. — an amount that represents some 10,000 jobs.
Dow also outlined some of the main points of the framework, which is now available to read in its entirety on the U.S. Travel Association’s website.
The document features three guiding principles for what the coalition leaders believe will allow for a safe restart for international tourism to the U.S.:
- Reserve entry restrictions for only the highest-risk countries.
- Replace all other blanket travel restrictions with a framework of risk-based entry protocols.
- Ensure the framework is easy to understand, communicate, and implement
Beyond these principles, Dow said it is key that a decision be made quickly, and in specific terms, as to when international travel can reopen with eased restrictions.
“To have credibility, the government must commit themselves to a specific date when we’ll begin opening travel and work toward that date, because people have to make plans and airline capacity has to be added,” Dow said. “We need that [date] no later than this month.”
To have credibility, the government must commit themselves to a specific date when we’ll begin opening travel and work toward that date … We need that [date] no later than this month.
The framework proposes July 15, 2021, as the date when travel restrictions should be eased as “the U.S. is forecast to achieve widespread immunity and sustained declines in infections and hospitalizations” by that time.
Addressing the coronavirus variants that have now become a concern, Dow said: “It’s important to look at the variants and understand that they can be worked with. It’s also important to note that the Delta variant is already present in the U.S .... It’s here, and we are handling it.”
He also pointed to the high efficacy rates of the vaccines against the COVID-19 variants, as well as lower hospitalization rates for those who are infected.
“Travel restrictions are simply not what is helping contain the virus,” he said. “It’s all the other things we’re doing, not the travel restrictions, that are making a big difference.”
Other short-term proposals in the framework include lifting entry requirements and reopening travel between the U.S. and the U.K. immediately, pointing to the high vaccinate rates in both places. Although the framework does not call for the implementation of vaccine passports, it does propose allowing fully vaccinated individuals from non-high-risk countries to enter the U.S. without proof of a negative COVID-19 test or recovery.
“The U.S. government should work with non-high-risk countries to quickly establish guidelines for verifying proof of vaccine status,” the document reads.
“It’s a slippery slope to go with vaccine passports and say that’s the only way you can get on a plane,” Dow said. “If we have to start slow [and adjust the approach later], we’re ok with that. The bottom line is, there will always be 30-40% of people for whatever reason that may not be vaccinated, and you don’t want to cut yourself off from 30-40% of the market.”
Tori Emerson Barnes, executive vice president of public affairs and policy at the U.S. Travel Association, joined Dow for a Q&A at the end of the press conference and also addressed concerns over the logistics of implementing vaccine passports.
“We support options for paper or digital vaccination certification, just to get things started,” Emerson Barnes said. “Paper or by uploading [vaccination certification] digitally in the private sector apps that are being created are definitely two ways that we would be able to start right away.”
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