FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) – These are the annual trips of late winter and early spring: factory workers in China head home for the Lunar New Year; American college students walking down the road and going out on the beach during the spring break; Germans and British fleeing the gloomy sky to soak up a Mediterranean sun during Easter.
Everything was canceled, in doubt or under pressure due to the coronavirus.
Amid fears about new variants of the virus, new restrictions on movement have affected just as people begin to look forward to what is usually a busy time of year to travel.
It means more pain for airlines, hotels, restaurants and tourist destinations that have been fighting the pandemic for more than a year and a slower recovery for countries where tourism is an important part of the economy.
U.S. colleges have canceled spring break to deter students from traveling. After Indiana University in Bloomington replaced his regular break with three “wellness days,” student Jacki Sylvester abandoned plans to celebrate his 21st birthday in Las Vegas.
Instead, it will mark the milestone closest to home, with a day at the French Lick, Indiana casino, just 80 miles away.
“I really wanted to leave for a whole week. I wanted to be able to have a drink and have fun (see the casinos and everything) and honestly see another city and travel a bit, ”he said.
“At least it allows us to have some fun for a day in a summarized version of our original Vegas plans. Equally, I will still be able to celebrate. … I am forced to do it closer to home. “
At China’s bus and train stations, there are no signs of the annual lunar New Year’s rush. The government has appealed to the public to avoid travel after new outbreaks of coronavirus. Only five of the 15 security gates of Beijing’s cavernous central railway station were open; the crowd of travelers who habitually camped in the extensive square outside were absent.
Holidays, which begin on February 12, are often the largest humanitarian movement in the world, as hundreds of millions of Chinese leave cities to visit their cities or tourist sites or travel abroad. For millions of migrant workers, it is often the only opportunity to visit their hometowns during the year. This year, authorities promise an additional pay if they stay.
The government says people will make 1.7 billion trips during the holidays, but that it is down 40% from 2019. Forecasts for departures from Beijing and Chengdu in the southwest are expected to fall by 75%, according to the associations. travelers.
It seems that each news cycle involves new restrictions. U.S. President Joe Biden has reinstated restrictions on travelers from more than two dozen European countries, South Africa and Brazil, while people leaving the United States must now show negative evidence before returning. .
Canada banned flights to the Caribbean. Israel closed its main international airport. Travel to the European Union is severely restricted, with entry bans and quarantine requirements for returning citizens.
For air travel, “the short-term outlook has definitely darkened,” said Brian Pearce, chief economist at the International Air Transport Association. Governments have invested $ 200 billion in strengthening the industry.
The United Nations World Tourism Organization says international arrivals fell 74 percent last year and ended with $ 1.3 trillion in revenue and put up to 120 million jobs at risk. . A group of UNWTO experts had mixed prospects for 2021, with 45% expecting a better year, 25% unchanged and 30% worse.
“The overall outlook for a rebound in 2021 appears to have worsened,” the organization said.
In Europe, the outlook is clouded by the delay in the deployment of vaccines and the spread of new variants.
That means “there is a growing risk of missing another summer tourist season,” Jack Allen-Reynolds told Capital Economics. “This would put a huge boost on the Greek economy and substantially delay recoveries in Spain and Portugal.”
The travel company TUI offers sun vacation packages in Greece and Spain, but with extensive cancellation arrangements to attract prudent customers. Places that can be reached by car, such as the German islands of the North Sea and the Alps, benefit to some extent because they offer the possibility of isolation. The German Association of Holiday Homes says popular locations are already 60% reserved for the months of July and August.
Thailand, where about a tenth of the population depends on tourism for its livelihood, requires a forty-two-week stay for foreigners in designated hotels that cost about $ 1,000 and up. So far, only a few dozen people a day choose to visit it. Tourist arrivals were reduced to less than 7 million in Thailand in 2020 and are expected to only reach 10 million this year from the 40 million in 2019.
The spa island of Indonesia, Bali, has deported dozens of foreigners and began restricting foreign arrivals on January 1, as the number of coronavirus cases has exceeded one million.
Gerasimos Bakogiannis, owner of the Portes Palace Hotel in Potidaia in the Halkidiki region of northern Greece, said he would not even open Western Easter on April 4, but would wait a month for Orthodox Easter. Greek on May 2 and, hopefully, the beginning of a better summer.
“If this year is like last year, tourism will be destroyed,” he said.
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McDonald contributed from Beijing and Smith from Indianapolis. Elaine Kurtenbach contributed from Bangkok and Costas Kantouris from Thessaloniki, Greece.