April 20, 2020, Washington D.C. — The travel industry has lost a full third of all the jobs lost in the U.S. and is experiencing a total impact from coronavirus that is nine times greater than the 9/11 attacks, according to new data released by the U.S. Travel Association and the analytics firm Tourism Economics.
By the end of April, declines in travel will cause eight million jobs to be lost out of approximately 24 million for the entire U.S. economy, according to the report. Travel spending losses are on track to top half a trillion dollars by the end of 2020.
Other data analysis released by U.S. Travel this week compounds the dire economic picture for the American travel economy:
- Overall travel spending last week plunged to $2.9 billion—an 85% drop since the first week of March and 87% lower than the same week in 2019, according to a separate analysis by Tourism Economics.
- 90% of travelers surveyed had some type of travel or travel-related activity planned prior to the COVID-19 outbreak and 80% of those either canceled or postponed those plans, according to survey data from MMGY Travel Intelligence.
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