What If Foreign Travelers Just Aren’t Coming to the US?

by Robert McGarvey

The US hospitality sector is ebullient: the foreigners are coming, the foreigners are coming. After 20 months of shut international borders, the US is tearing down the barricades and is ready to welcome travelers from abroad (if they are vaccinated). New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Washington DC and more are in high alert ready for this influx of guests.

Observed the New York Times, “the beleaguered tourism industry is eagerly awaiting an influx in international visitors.”

Words of advice: stand down.

They ain’t coming. Not soon.

According to Lindsey Roeschke writing in Morning Consult, “Most travelers will wait until at least summer 2022 to visit the United States, and are prepared for the possibility of new COVID-19 developments derailing their plans.”

She added: “Among seven of the countries that send the most travelers to the United States in a typical year — in rank order of pre-pandemic arrival numbers: Canada, Mexico, the U.K., China, Brazil, Germany and France — relatively few people have definite plans to travel to the United States in the next three months.”

Why? Covid. And the fact that the US still does not have control of this epidemic. We in fact are sliding to the basement of the G7 in terms of vaccination rates.

If asked by a European if they should come to the US I would say no.

I think back to my own experience a few months ago planning a trip to Europe. I studied vaccination rates for Spain, where I wound up going, also Portugal.

Only 58% of the US is fully vaccinated today. 79% of Spaniards are. 87% of Portuguese are.

I can also attest from personal observation that mask compliance in Spain is very, very high, even outdoors in cities and definitely indoors.

The US cannot say any of that. What foreign visitors have to know is that they will be entering a country of risks. Risks that shouldn’t exist. But they do. And a rational person would decide not to come here.

And so they are.

Aren’t some US states safer than others? You bet. But that doesn’t seem to matter to many foreigner travelers. said Morning Consult, “Across all countries surveyed, respondents were much more likely to say they don’t feel comfortable planning a trip anywhere in the United States than to say they are comfortable going to some areas but not others.”

Morning Consult continues: “Travelers from key markets in the Americas — Brazil, Canada and Mexico — are the most likely to be certain about coming to the United States in the coming year.” Joy. Mexico is 49% fully vaccinated. Brazil is 59%. Both lower than us. Canada at 76% is significantly higher and if Canadians look at the math they will probably decide to stay home until we smarten up and get vaccinated.

Arguably, for Mexicans and Brazilians the math says they will be safer here and so perhaps they should come. But that same math tells Europeans to stay home. The only European nations with rates below ours are former Soviet bloc countries such as Hungary (59%), Poland (53%), and Ukraine (18%).

We need to pull our heads out of the sand and accept that if we do not get our vaccination rates up – over 70% fully vaccinated at a minimum – we won’t be globally competitive.

Reuters, incidentally, has a piece that is a dyspeptic look at the rebound of trans Atlantic business travel and its take is, don’t hold your breath. It reported: “the full transatlantic restart might not be as lucrative as airlines would hope.” Between Covid worries, travel budget cuts, and a general disenchantment with a lot of business travel, it is probable that trans Atlantic air traffic will remain at sharply diminished rates for some months to come

Meantime, back at Morning Consult, there’s a belief that international travel to the US may perk up by mid 2022. Possibly.

But surely a big issue will be if we finally get vaccinated.

If we don’t nothing will change regarding to international travelers. It would be dumb to come here until we fix our problems.

And, yes, I am personally planning a trip to Portugal. For me that is trip into a safer, healthier place.

That’s the kind of calculation smart travelers should be making and, unfortunately, the US comes out on the wrong side of the equation.