Day: June 6, 2022

The U.S. Commerce Department on Monday will unveil a new strategy aimed at boosting international tourism hit hard by COVID-19 and government travel restrictions by streamlining the entry process and promoting more diverse destinations.

The “National Travel and Tourism Strategy” sets a goal of 90 million international visitors by 2027 who will spend an estimated $279 billion annually, topping pre-pandemic levels, the department told Reuters.

“There are a lot of industries that are well past COVID – travel and tourism is not,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in an interview.

The federal government must do more to support the resurgence of travel and tourism to ensure the industry rebuilds to be “more resilient, sustainable and equitable,” according to the draft strategy document seen by Reuters.

In 2019, the United States had 79.4 million international visitors, a figure that plummeted to 19.2 million in 2020 as the pandemic hit and rose to just 22.1 million in 2021.

International visitors spent $239.4 billion in 2019, but just $81 billion in 2019, the Commerce Department said.

Before COVID, tourism supported 9.5 million U.S. jobs and generated $1.9 trillion in economic output.

One of the strategy’s goals is to modernize entry procedures for visitors to enter and travel within the United States.

“We need to streamline the entry process,” Raimondo said. “It’s cumbersome and very paper-based and we want to move to a more digital process.”

Other goals include promoting more diverse U.S. tourism experiences beyond coastal states, reducing tourism’s contributions to climate change and building a sector that is resilient to natural disasters, public health threats and the impacts of climate change.

One reason tourism fell so sharply was the United States lagged many other countries in lifting COVID border restrictions that barred much of the world from entering. The U.S. rules were not eased until November 2021.

The United States still requires foreign nationals to be vaccinated against COVID and nearly all international air passengers to test negative before travel. U.S. airlines say nearly all other countries they serve are not requiring testing.

Raimondo acknowledged testing is a “barrier” to tourism and that the United States is an “outlier” but did not forecast when those rules might be relaxed.

“I hear a lot about it from industry and I have been expressing that to the administration,” Raimondo said.

Source: Voice of America

Residents stuck inside a compound nearly a week after Shanghai’s much vaunted reopening following a virus outbreak shouted at hazmat-clad officials on Monday, as fears grew that some city neighborhoods were being locked down again.

Authorities in the financial hub eased many harsh restrictions last Wednesday, after confining most of the city’s 25 million inhabitants to their homes since late March, as China battled its worst COVID outbreak in two years.

But hundreds of thousands have not yet been allowed out of their homes, while others have immediately been placed back under local lockdowns after a brief liberation that triggered shopping sprees and booze-fueled street parties.

In downtown Xuhui district on Monday, an AFP reporter witnessed about a dozen people in one fenced-off housing compound shouting angrily at hazmat-clad officials.

From behind rows of fences, crowds chanted “Serve the people!” at officials standing on the other side.

One resident, who gave the surname Li, said tempers had flared after the community was suddenly put back into lockdown on Saturday.

“I’m very indignant,” he told AFP. “It’s been two months and we can’t cope anymore. We’re all negative [on COVID tests], why lock us in a cage?”

A local media outlet said in a swiftly deleted social media post that residents of the compound were angry at the threat of being sent to state-run quarantine facilities despite being designated “low-risk.”

Li said virus-negative people were being transferred to quarantine hotels every day, sometimes in the middle of the night.

“It’s had a huge impact on everyone’s lives,” he said. “Our mood is very bleak.”

Some restrictions lifted

Shanghai has creaked back to life in recent days, as commuters have begun to return to their offices and residents have gathered in parks and along the city’s historic waterfront.

But authorities have said over half a million people remain under movement curbs in the city.

Under China’s stringent zero-COVID approach, all positive cases are isolated and close contacts — often including the entire building or community where they live — are made to quarantine.

People from the financial hub still face lengthy quarantines or outright bans on entering other parts of the country.

A phased, voluntary reopening of the city’s schools began on Monday, with around 250 schools open and children in the final two years of high school the first allowed to return.

Malls, convenience stores, pharmacies and beauty salons are only allowed to open at limited capacity, while cinemas and gyms remain closed.

Taxi services and private cars are allowed in “low-risk” areas only.

Shanghai and the capital Beijing — which has also been trying to stamp out a cluster of cases — both posted single-digit numbers of infections on Monday.

Beijing eased a ban on indoor dining as more employees returned to their offices after weeks of working from home.

Source: Voice of America