(Bloomberg) --
Simpson, WTTC president and chief executive officer, “as well as the massive dampening effect that the testing requirement has had on travelers who have been wanting to go to the US.”
In 2019 international tourism directly and indirectly brought $191 billion to the American economy—a number that tumbled by 80% in 2020 and only recovered by about one percent in 2021, according to Simpson. (She cites the delayed border reopening, in November 2021, as a culprit for the extended decline.)
Mexico, parts of the Caribbean, Greece, Turkey, Spain—they're all powering ahead, and a lot of them have either hit or eclipsed 2019 spending figures this year.” She credits looser travel restrictions, enacted earlier on in the pandemic, as the common advantage. “People have been booking ahead and making alternate decisions based on what was possible in that moment in time,” she explains.
But that doesn't mean that lifting the testing requirements for US entry will fully open the floodgates, either. “Airfares are a continuing challenge now,” Simpson adds. “And with fuel prices increasing, that's going to put limits on the recovery of long-haul travel.”
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