Travel Reopening, Vaccine Equity, and Women in the Travel Industry
PATA CEO Liz Ortiguera shared a message with the PATA community on Feb 18, 2022, with updates about the travel industry’s “hot topics“. The full message has been reposted below:
Dear PATA Members and Industry Colleagues,
The past two weeks have been a whirlwind of news and activities. Three topics have been recurring for me in meetings, conversations and events. A) the complexities of travel reopening, B) vaccine equity, and C) women and their role in a sustainable travel recovery.
First, in the world of omicron versus travel - it has been a period of mixed messages and cautious optimism. A spate of markets across Asia-Pacific announced their imminent easing of travel restrictions and border requirements (each to varying degrees and specifics). In the backdrop, the region is experiencing the Omicron-fuelled tidal wave of cases which started late last year in Western nations. As the WHO European Head described it recently "a tidal wave moving West to East", markets in Asia are to varying degrees rapidly rising in cases, while markets in the West are a mixed bag of subsiding and rising. What makes this even more opaque is that healthcare experts estimate case statistics in each region are likely under-reported by 5 to 10 X. While some Western countries are throwing off their mask requirements, you'll read health experts are advising “time to upgrade your masks". A recent article in Bloomberg gave what I believe is one of the most accurate snapshots of our public health situation today.
In this context, as the travel industry, we need to find our opportunities to reopen travel quickly, efficiently, and responsibly so travel stays open and we are no longer viewed as the high risk. Especially during my recent multi-country/multi-region journey, I saw opportunities to streamline measures while respecting practical risk mitigation considerations. I had an interesting discussion with ADB on the complexities of reopening markets in the Pacific Islands, Micronesia and other locations to tourism and the fact there's no easy "playbook" yet on how to best restart the travel engine.
Government officials across the region have the unenviable position of weighing public health risks versus the impact to livelihoods and broad scale economic impacts. Our Government Members-only Destination Recovery Insight sessions, hosted in partnership with World Bank, have been our first approach in helping destinations accelerate their learnings (PATA Government Members can request a copy of the recording.). We will continue to drive this further and seek additional forums to expedite and streamline travel restarts.
WHO has stated that travel bans are ineffective- detection of a rapidly spreading virus has too long a lag time for it to be effective and, in fact, it hinders. So where is the right balance between openings and protocols ? Each market is weighing this through their filters of cultural norms, politics, economics, and resources. I'm observing an easing to a more risk-based approach here in Singapore and some other markets. For PATA, we'll continue to seek ways to support expediting and smoothing the openings. One simple measure - wearing a good mask (i.e. KN95's and KF94's) and wearing it properly is probably one of the simplest measures we can all take to protect ourselves and our communities in higher risk circumstances (crowded, indoor spaces) at home and when travelling.
This past week, both SKIFT and TTG approached me to speak about PATA's advocacy for vaccine equity and its importance in driving a global recovery. As noted in the SKIFT article and TTG Interview, with the demand for boosters, the challenge of getting vaccines to low income / less developed nations gets heightened. The pandemic isn't over until it's over everywhere. I was cheered with the news that two researchers out of Texas (Dr. Peter Hotez and microbiologist Maria Elena Bottazzi) have created an inexpensive COVID vaccine (Corbevax) and made it license-free for less developed nations to manufacture. THAT's how you properly respond to a global, humanitarian crisis. Very appropriately, both scientists have just been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
And lastly, I've been frequently approached this past week on the topic of Women in Travel - in the lead up to International Women's Day and most importantly given the fact that women have been the hardest hit (particularly in Asia-Pacific) with the industry downturn. Our industry in this region is comprised of 60% women and, since they predominate the front line service roles, have been disproportionately among the hardest hit with the industry downturn. We piloted an Informal Workers Support Project in Thailand providing health and safety and business advisory to 500 individuals in this most impacted segment. We would love to see this replicated across the region so would welcome any sponsors for this.
Two last bits of news to highlight, as noted below, we've decided to reschedule our PATA Annual Summit to Oct 25-27, 2022 where it will be hosted in Ras Al Khaimah, UAE (local to Dubai airport). Please save the date! Ras Al Khaimah is a fantastic desert, mountain and beachside location - we can all reconnect and you'll appreciate the beauty and dimension of their landscape. We'll have a full program addressing both critical urgent and strategic topics relevant to our industry. Also, we're excited with the launch of our Tourism Destination Resilience Programme - an open resource to benefit all destinations. See our newly released video:
The current situation is complex but please know that as PATA we're working to identify and develop every bright spot we can to best support our members and the industry at large in emerging stronger and better.
