It's time to dust off the suitcases

The COVID-19 pandemic has proved to be a brutal blow to the waterline of the global travel and tourism business. The deadly virus and the measures taken by the various governments around the world have taken the travel industry back to 2019 levels, in other words, a leap backwards in which all the progress made so far has been lost. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), international air traffic collapsed to -65.9 percent. And according to Amadeus data, occupancy in the hotel sector did not exceed 36.1 percent. As a result of the slowdown in activity and the freezing of revenues, the sector has had to shrink manpower to try to stay afloat for as long as possible and, if we stick to the figures quoted by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), apart from the jobs lost in the tourism industry (more than 62 million jobs globally, leaving only some 272 million surviving jobs), out of the jobs that have been maintained, there are currently some 120 million jobs at risk, under a sword of Damocles whose final blow depends on progress in the fight against the pandemic.  

According to UNWTO figures, the losses caused by COVID-19 to world GDP amount to 2 trillion dollars. The travel industry, although battered, has reacted to save a way of life that the pandemic abruptly extinguished. The truth is that travel is part of human behavior. It is a way of growing, learning, sharing, socializing, discovering, living and remembering. It is a necessity whose disappearance would take us back to dark times long gone: a sort of new Cretaceous period where the dinosaurs on the verge of extinction could well be ourselves. 

Fortunately, coordinated reactions are underway on an international scale to pull our heads out of the water. Mass vaccinations, increased hygiene and distancing measures, use of masks to reduce contagions and, above all, a joint will to lift this industry which, in 2019, before the outbreak of the pandemic, generated one in four of all new jobs worldwide, while tourism and travel contributed 10.6 percent (334 million) of jobs globally. The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) estimates the economic impact of the pandemic at a revenue loss of $4.5 trillion (3.82 trillion euros). From representing 10.4 percent of world GDP, tourism plummeted to 5.5 percent (check the WTTC's graphic below). These job losses were felt throughout the sector, but it has been the SMEs, which account for 80 percent of all companies in the sector, that have been hardest hit. In this regard, the technology giant Amadeus has presented the Spanish government with a project to revive the tourism business through the digitization of hotel SMEs and tourist destinations. 

Now, it is imperative to reach the resumption of safe international travel from June with the adoption, among other measures, of a coordinated international anti-COVID testing program for all unvaccinated travelers that eliminates once and for all quarantines, that "death knell" for tourism. To this must be added, with optimism, the adoption by the European Union of the so-called COVID Passport that will help boost the recovery of travel and tourism. These EU COVID-19 vaccine passports will come into force in the EU in July. Since June 21, France will allow the use of its "TousAntiCovid" application throughout the continent, while in Spain there are already more than 200,000 COVID certificates in circulation -a document that is not mandatory when traveling, but that speeds up the entry procedures in an EU country by avoiding additional tests and quarantines that could be imposed in the event that the traveler does not have the document and cannot present it at the airport. 

Amadeus has been advocating for months for the rebuilding of the industry and the collaboration of all players in the value chain to achieve an ecosystem that makes it possible to regain traveler confidence in rebooking and embarking on safe travel.

Now is the time to make it happen. And, above all, even if you've almost lost the habit, don't forget anything when it comes to packing your bags and getting back on your chosen mode of transport. Safe travels!