This afternoon, U.S. Travel Association President and CEO Roger Dow, along with American Hotel & Lodging Association President and CEO Chip Rogers and multiple hotel executives, met with President Trump, Vice President Pence and Commerce Secretary Ross to discuss the impact of coronavirus on America's travel industry and a disaster relief package to help support the millions of travel workers and businesses—83% of which are small business—affected by these incredible circumstances.
In the meeting, U.S. Travel presented the severity of the situation to America's travel industry and recommendations for immediate policy action to protect travel workers, travel businesses and the rest of the economy that depends on our industry.
Immediately after this meeting, we joined a call with the media and released the economic impact data from Oxford Economics that we shared with the White House. These findings summarized in the below chart are critical in communicating the devastating impact to our workforce and urging Congress and the administration to take action. More data can be found on our website. The release of this data is driving strong media pickup.
Starting this week, we will be sending a weekly communication with all the latest research and data on the impact this outbreak is having on our industry. Everyone who receives this weekly email will receive our new research email as well.
Federal/Congressional Updates
- Today, U.S. Travel circulated a letter to both chambers of Congress sizing the incredible impact of coronavirus to the U.S. travel economy and workforce, along with our policy recommendations to immediately address the severe falloff:
- Grants to protect the travel workforce: Provide direct grants to keep workers in their jobs and provide compensation for economic losses incurred in the interest of public health.
- Loans to stabilize business operations: Provide travel-dependent businesses and nonprofits with zero interest, unsecured lines of credit from the U.S. Treasury Department. Maximize SBA loan programs by increasing loan limits and guarantee percentages, waiving loan fees, and providing forbearance on interest and loan payments through 2020.
- Provide tax relief to mitigate economic losses and spur recovery: Permit affected businesses to temporarily defer tax liability, delay or eliminate estimated quarterly tax payments and filing deadlines and allow for a carryback of the Net Operating Loss (NOL) deduction.
- Reverse declines in travel demand—keep America moving and working: Install a temporary travel tax credit to encourage travel spending, restore the entertainment business expense deduction, boost community development block grants to promote healthy travel and provide a temporary payroll tax cut.
- On Monday afternoon, President Trump held a press conference to issue new recommended guidelines for Americans to observe for the next 15 days. The recommendations included avoiding discretionary travel, avoiding social gatherings with more than 10 people and avoiding restaurants, bars and food courts.
- Also on Monday, three House Committee chairs called for the Department of Homeland Security to delay the REAL ID compliance deadline due to the impact of coronavirus and continually low numbers of Americans with compliant identification. U.S. Travel has been coordinating with key members in both chambers on this call for an extension and is preparing to pivot our own messaging to call for a deadline as well.
- On Saturday, the House of Representatives passed a second coronavirus relief package that expands access to free coronavirus testing and provides $1 billion in food aid and sick leave benefits for vulnerable Americans. The U.S. Senate is expected to take up the package today after technical corrections were passed by the House late last night.
- On Friday afternoon, President Trump issued a national emergency due to the spread of coronavirus in the U.S. This action unlocked $42 billion in federal resources from the Disaster Relief Fund, which the Federal Emergency Management Agency can use to support a coordinated natural disaster response plan with state and local governments.
International Updates
- Last week, President Trump announced restrictions on all travel from the European Union for 30 days, and over the weekend those restrictions were extended to include the United Kingdom and Ireland. On Monday, the E.U. itself followed suit and restricted all nonessential travel into the region for 30 days as well.
- Canada also announced that it would close its borders to most nonresidents. It exempted visitors from the U.S., though anyone who crosses the border from the U.S. will still be required to self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival.
Travel Industry Updates
- On Monday, U.S. Travel held a call with its Communications Advisory Committee to provide an update on policy and messaging developments. Our message aims to provide support for the suite of policy solutions that U.S. Travel is advancing in Congress to mitigate the damage from the severe disruptions to travel.
U.S. Travel has initiated weekly data updates with Tourism Economics to get a sense of the national economic impact of coronavirus, such as spending declines and job losses, as well as to compile survey results on how the coronavirus situation is affecting traveler sentinments.
