Some parts of the world are already showing progress in the pandemic. In the US, domestic travel is now back near pre-pandemic level. However, international travel is a different story. Since some countries have a slower pace in terms of their vaccination rollout, international travel has lagged significantly compared to US domestic travel numbers. The US still doesn’t want Americans to travel internationally just yet.
International travel dropped by 73% in 2020 compared to 2019. That’s equivalent to an estimated $2.4 trillion worth of losses to the tourism and related sectors based on the UNCTAD report and the UN’s World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).
Unfortunately, international travel for the rest of 2021 still doesn’t look good. According to Ralf Peters of UNCTAD’s trade analysis branch, “The first three months were again bad, there was not much traveling happening. There is an expectation of a certain recovery in the second half of the year, at least for North America and Europe to a certain extent”.
And for the rest of the world, the UN report doesn’t look optimistic that international travel is going to make a comeback.
The best scenario for international travel this year is to see a 63% drop from pre-pandemic levels. The worst is to see a 75% drop. Either way, the travel industry should still expect losses. Zoritsa Urosevic of UNWTO said that “In international tourism, we are at levels 30 years ago, so basically we are in the 80s”. The best scenario for international travel is to see 2019’s numbers after 2023.
The emergence of new variants is considered a curveball for the travel industry’s recovery worldwide. There are countries that now have the delta variant as their dominant strain. Sandra Carvao who is the chief of market intelligence at UNWTO, “We see for example Asia-Pacific is still one of the most closed regions in the world at this moment—most of the borders in the countries are either totally closed or with significant restrictions”.
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