旅行顾问继续推动取消美国的入站测试要求
byDaniel McCarthy/
美国仍然是对进入该国的旅行者(加拿大,英国,意大利,澳大利亚等)施加入站测试要求的最后主要国家之一。
While Americans continue to travel, international travel, typically the most profitable for travel advisors, continues to drag, and people inside the travel industry are increasingly wondering when the requirement will be pulled.
That drag is shown both in TSA passenger volume—the last five days, for instance, have all seen checkpoint numbers somewhere between 11% and 18% compared to 2019 levels—and in air tickets sold by travel agencies and OTAs—ARC’s leisure ticket rolling average for the last 52-weeks is 26.4% below 2019 levels.
It is also shown in inbound interest.According to a survey conducted recently by Morning Consult for U.S. Travel Association,来自法国,德国,英国,韩国,日本和印度的全面接种疫苗的国际旅行者因要求而选择不前往美国。
调查发现,超过一半的旅行者(54%)的旅行决定受到与美国的exp前前测试要求相关的不确定性的影响。它还发现,一半的受访者说,由于出发前的测试要求(47%),他们在未来12个月内不太可能在国外旅行。
旅行顾问谈话影响
The American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA),这称该要求是该行业完全恢复的“最大障碍”,它是反对这一要求的最强烈的声音之一,其成员和其他不是成员的顾问也是如此。
Keisha Adriano, the team lead manager and luxury travel advisor at Washington D.C.’s Travelwise International, told TMR this week that “the inbound testing requirements continue to be one of the major deterrents for travelers and the uncertainty has affected travel demand.”
“人们已经担心成本和通货膨胀率上升,现在是第二次猜测之旅,担心这可能会花费他们比最初预期的要多。复仇旅行在这里,但确实针对可以吸收额外费用的家庭。”她说。
One Travelwise client, Adriano said, spent 10 days in Switzerland before testing positive as they were preparing to come home.
“他们的最初反应是震惊和恐惧,但是通过在整个过程中与他们合作并传达他们的担忧,我们能够尽快将它们带回家。旅行的复杂性可能令人不安,我们对客户非常支持,敏捷和适应所有情况。”她说。
According to Adriano, travel won’t fully recover until that testing rule is rescinded and travelers can regain the confidence and assurance that they will be able to return to the U.S. without delay.
Jill Labare, vice president of business development with Oasis Travel Network, also told TMR that clients are hesitant to leave the U.S. by plane because of “fear they can’t return as planned or need to incur additional expenses” and that from her perspective, the testing requirements are nonsensical.
“It makes no sense that air travel to return to the U.S. is the only mode of transportation where testing is required. You can drive into the US from Canada and Mexico without a test. You can cruise out of the U.S. and back without a return test. Why test if you are returning by air?” she said.
The requirement “is inhibiting travel and is negatively impacting the travel advisors who are primarily small business owners. It is also creating a significant amount of stress for the travel advisors in addition to extra work when they do have clients willing to travel by air outside of the U.S.,” Labare added.
旅行社网络机构的老板泰德·布兰克(Ted Blank)告诉TMR,他刚从莱茵河上的河流巡游中回来,不得不亲自应对考试。
他说:“这是快速而轻松的,实际上在瑞士是自由的,这是一个惊喜。”“但是它给其他旅行者造成的焦虑和压力是真实的。我自己对此非常乐观,我已经失去了与旅行相关的Covid测试的追踪,’他说。
Blank描述了该测试是如何提前几天对话的主要话题,我认为每个人都对此有着潜伏的意识。”
“It has definitely had an impact on bookings and future planning. I think many people are oddly optimistic that it will be lifted soon, and are waiting for that before pulling the trigger on trips. It has had a significant negative impact on European travel this spring and summer,” he added.
这本书 - Profravel Inc.的Journeys的所有者芭芭拉·汗(Barbara Khan)告诉TMR,由于退货测试要求,她仍然有不想离开美国的客户。
“I just had a family of 3 adults reach out and they thought the testing depended on the country you were going to return from. When I explained it was the U.S. requiring it (maybe the only country left!) they decided they needed to stay within U.S., USVI, and PR. Their son who had just graduated college was starting a new job and could not miss his first day if he was positive,” she said.
您如何帮助?
U.S.-based travel advisors can help continue to raise awareness not just of the testing requirement but also of how it is affecting their business by writing to their local media.
ASTA已将一封信给编辑的入站测试活动, which makes it easy for travel advisors to send a message to their local media. Members can simply fill out their information and send a pre-written message explaining how the requirement is affecting business to their local media.
一些ASTA成员已经得到报道,在康涅狄格州与沃特伯里(Waterbury)旅行的Largay旅行的Amanda Klimak在内.
ASTA还为当地代表们开展了类似的信函撰写运动。That tool is built the same way as the media one, making it easy to write to lawmakers about how the inbound testing is hampering business.