Travel Updates: How The Travel Industry Is Shaping Up In 2021?
Nikki Attkisson | Last Updated : January 6, 2021As travel is likely to get back to normal in the next few months, the entire industry is gearing towards reopening tourism in a big way.
Given that most tourist spots were shut down during the pandemic, they are eagerly waiting to resume the business as it will give employment to millions of Americans. The industry experts say that things will change forever after the covid pandemic.
Travel Updates: How The Travel Industry Is Shaping Up In 2021?
The arrival of covid vaccines is great news for the tourism industry. The entire industry hopes that they will be able to recover the losses of 2020 in the next few years.
Once a majority of Americans are vaccinated, the lockdown can be eased and this means that travelers can move around freely without many restrictions.
As of now, the covid restrictions have spoiled the fun for most travelers as they are not able to venture outside in large gatherings. Most of the restaurants are not operating to their full capacity.
Even when hotels and restaurants are opened, there are many restrictions as many people are not allowing dine-in options. Several restaurants are now focusing on take away and home delivery options.
While this is a good option for the residents, travelers will prefer to dine in as they cannot handle a takeaway meal. In this situation, the hotels are not able to provide the best service for many travelers.
However, once the covid restrictions are eased in travel destinations, it will boost the business of several restaurants. Many hotspots are known for large gatherings and this cannot be avoided in tourist spots.
When most of the travelers are vaccinated, there will be no issues and no fear of transmission in that region. In this way, even airlines will also benefit as they get added passengers on a regular basis.
The previous year was a disaster for air travel as several airlines were shut down for many months. Most of them were not able to operate due to lockdown and lack of passengers for many days.
Due to these factors, many airlines canceled flights and they even downsized their teams by a huge margin. Several flight attendants and pilots lost jobs due to the pandemic situation.
In the same manner, many tourist guides and others who do freelance jobs in the tourism industry also suffered a lot due to the pandemic. As they lost jobs, they were not able to move into another fields due to lack of specific skills. Some of them have moved to sales jobs recently as travel is unlikely to pick up for the next few months.
Several booking agencies and hotels also suffered huge losses during this time. Only those hotels that were able to use their premises for covid facilities were able to survive the pandemic.
In this situation, they earned some money from the government as the hotels were used by the administration to house covid patients or others who had to be quarantined due to some reasons.
As of now, local travel is the first big gainer once the vaccine becomes available for the masses. After that, depending on the situation outside the US, international travel may also pick up in the near future.
Currently, the US has banned flights from some nations that are severely affected due to the pandemic. This is done as per the CDC guidelines and it will change depending on the covid 19 situations across the world.
Considering all these factors, the tourism industry has to make a lot of changes in the future. The hotels have to be prepared for digital menus as many people will now be cautious about such things. Apart from that, screening the passengers for health conditions will become a norm in the future.
With over 15 years as a practicing journalist, Nikki Attkisson found herself at Powdersville Post now after working at several other publications. She is an award-winning journalist with an entrepreneurial spirit and worked as a journalist covering technology, innovation, environmental issues, politics, health etc. Nikki Attkisson has also worked on product development, content strategy, and editorial management for numerous media companies. She began her career at local news stations and worked as a reporter in national newspapers.