An urgent meeting of travel industry association leaders has been called to deal with the outbreak of the coronavirus.
Eleven representatives from various associations in the travel industry came together in person and through phone call to talk about the impact the coronavirus has caused to the travel industry and also to make sure that the small businesses are not disregarded when the government relieve is announced.
The representatives agreed that the federal government needs to take swift actions to provide favorable loans and grants for small business in travel industry to handle the market failure.
The recent forecast by US Travel Association show that the travel industry is most likely to face a $809 billion loss with the lose of approximately 4.6 million jobs that will double the unemployment rate in US.
“Unprecedented times call for urgent action and our industry as a whole needs to be proactive to ensure the business health of each of our members, so many of whom are small businesses, and their employees stays front and center as government relief programs are developed and announced,” said Terry Dale, president and CEO of USTOA. “The combined voices from each of these industry partners and their collective memberships will make a powerful impact to urge government officials to act fast. We are separate, yet united.”
Peter Pantuso, president and CEO of the American Bus Association said: “Motorcoach operators, tour operators, destinations and other tourism-related organizations (including local and regional government partners), along with product and service suppliers, all support the travel industry and are being significantly hit by the COVID-19. Collectively, the motorcoach, tour and travel industries provide nearly 2 million jobs and create more than $236 billion in economic impact nationwide. These are industries dominated by small entrepreneurial businesses, many of which are multigenerational family businesses. Unlike larger corporate interests, these companies cannot withstand such a significant economic downturn.”
