Travel: Down, but not out

Travel has taken a big hit, and travel advisors will play a big part in tapping the industry’s resilience – and pent-up demand

- By Mimi Kmet

More than six months into the COVID-19 pandemic, hotel occupancy rates are still down, most cruise ships are docked, meeting and conference halls are empty, and travel agent bookings have stopped — or at least slowed considerably.

“There has been zero business travel booked since this pandemic started, and all international leisure travel has been negatively affected,” says Laurel Brunvoll, owner and president of Unforgettable Trips in Gaithersburg, MD.

But the pandemic is also showing that this industry is among the most resilient. Simply put, people want to travel. And travel advisors and suppliers alike are eager to get them on the road, in the air and aboard cruise ships. In fact, advisors who commented for this article say business is slowly returning; and some are getting inquiries and bookings for 2021 and beyond.

Sectors like air and lodging are already at work, albeit at a reduced capacity. According to the Transportation Security Administration, for example, the number of passengers going through checkpoints has been on a slow rise, from the low of 87,534 on April 14 (a 96 percent freefall from the same date in 2019) to over 2 million over the recent Labor Day weekend. Nearly half that total came on that Friday, when 968,000 travelers flew – the highest number since March 17.

And according to an American Hotel and Lodging Association study released Aug. 31, 65 percent of US properties reported occupancy rates approaching 50 percent – about double April’s historically low rate of 24.5 percent.