U.S. Travel Association President and CEO Roger Dow issued the following statement as the European Union decides to reopen borders for international travel.
“The European Union’s risk-based, science-driven plan to reopen international travel will hopefully spur the U.S. to heed the many calls for a plan and timetable to safely reopen our borders. The right conditions are in place: vaccinations are increasing, infections are decreasing, all inbound visitors get tested or have to prove they’ve recovered, and it’s possible to determine vaccine status.
“Vaccinated Americans can travel to other countries because EU governments know they’re essential tourism spenders and will safely support economic recovery. The U.S. is being left off the UK and EU safe list because we aren’t yet moving forward to let international visitors back in.
“The U.S. has been a leader in many aspects of managing the pandemic, but is behind our global competitors in pursuing an international economic reopening. The millions of travel-related U.S. jobs that were lost to the pandemic won’t come back on the strength of domestic travel alone, so identifying the path to restarting international visitation is essential to an overall economic recovery.”
