This Has to Happen Before Business Travel Returns

The Travel Weekly headline screamed the obvious: “Vaccine hesitancy is slowing the reopening of the U.S.”

Just about daily I am seeing multiple reports and predictions auguring a brisk and quick return of business travel. Today for instance Bloomberg observes that “Business trips coming back faster than expected in the U.S.” And United’s CEO “voices optimism” including a prediction that business travel will rebound in the fall: “We expect the demand to pick up in September, October.”

Nonsense and the reason I say that is that the US vaccination rates have fallen off a cliff. As of today 48.4% of us are fully vaccinated and with the Delta variant multiplying that simply means we are unsafe in crowded places and, to me, that means just about any meeting or in person event I can imagine. Experts say that with the emergence of variants we need perhaps 85% of us to be fully vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. Some say maybe we can get by with 70% vaccinated. But nobody thinks we will reach a 70% rate in every state this year. States like Mississippi, Louisiana, Idaho may never reach 70%.

As Travel Weekly noted. “Go back to April 21, and 40.2% of the U.S. population had received one vaccine dose, compared with 26.1% of Canada’s population and 20.1% of the population of the EU, to cite two prominent examples. As of July 4, however, the U.S. had only increased that figure to 54.5%, while Canada’s single-vaccination rate had soared to 68.6% and the EU was fast catching up to us at 52.1%, according to an analysis by Our World in Data. Barring an unforeseen turn, of course, Canada, EU countries and other wealthy nations will eclipse our fully vaccinated rate in due time.”

I told you we had fallen off a cliff. There now are plenty of vaccine shots available but there are too few willing arms.

Actions have consequences or, in this case, inaction has consequences. Those who decline to be vaccinated are in effect telling travelers to stay home.

And I think many of us will do exactly that. Or they will opt to go to destinations where the residents are more levelheaded.

Any way you parse the numbers, the reality is that anti vaxxers just are saying nope and a consequence is that travel just will not rebound as more of us are cautious about mingling with the unvaxxed.

About half the country’s states are simply unsafe. But CDC makes the data more useful by offering county level reports and, gulp, I find where I live, Maricopa County in AZ, has a “substantial” risk of community transmission and, worse, just 41.2% of us are fully vaccinated. That is why I still generally wear a mask when around others.

If I were you I would not come to Maricopa County – and I think many of us will be making decisions based on these data.

Personally I saw this vividly when, contemplating a possible trip to east Texas, I impulsively decided to look up the particular county I might go to. Just 27.4% of the people have gotten at least one shot. How about neighboring Arkansas? Only 34% of the residents are fully vaccinated, the Delta variant is galloping around the state and, no, I would not even think about going there.

Scratch that trip.

My prediction is that when confronted with a possible business trip we will include in our calculation a look at the state’s vaccination rate and also the particular county’s. See a high number and that nixes that trip.

The number’s look bad in much of the country. Just 47% of the residents of Clark County – where Las Vegas schemes about rebooting business meetings – have gotten even a single shot and that is nowhere near good enough. Erase Nevada off the go to list.

There are successes – Chicago for instance has been smart about vaccinations. So is San Antonio. But for every success, there is a failure.

This is mid 2021 reality. Vaccination rates will make our travel choices for us. Here’s a list of the most and least vaccinated states

And as more of us study such lists before booking a trip that will be very bad news for many destinations. Case in point: Fox 17 TV in Nashville asked this question: “With 10th lowest vaccination rate in US, is it responsible to tout tourism in Tennessee?” I can’t speak for leisure travelers but as regards business travelers my advice to Nashville is promote vaccines first, business travel second.

Or just look at the empty beds around town.