New World Travel Order

Your voice today can help shape the journeys of the future

- Dan Booth

Few people could look at a World Health Organization map of COVID-19 cases across the globe and fail to understand the profound impact the pandemic is having in this moment – and will continue to have for years to come: The changes are worldwide and they run deep. One industry that seems to have been disproportionately affected is travel. Millions of jobs have vanished, countless business trips have been cancelled, productivity has plummeted – the litany of loss goes on and on.

Now, however, the time for looking back is over. While the battle against the coronavirus is still being waged in parts of the world and much work remains, the overall sentiment is that the end may be in sight. The near-miraculous development of effective COVID-19 vaccines and their widespread administration – almost a billion first doses and counting as this goes to press – has fueled expectations. The rising optimism is reflected in increased leisure travel planning, hotel bookings and air traffic; in the US over the Memorial Day weekend just past, more than 7 million passengers were screened by TSA, quadruple the number over the same weekend during the depths of the pandemic just one year ago.