Dear Travel Industry: Here Are 3 Ways You Can Address Vaccine Equity Now
Photo Credit: Vaccine equity continues to fragment the industry's recovery, but tourism big stakeholders as well as organizations have ways to act now. Flickr / Eric Hunsperger
Skift Take
By remaining silent on vaccine equity, the travel industry's big players are as accountable as vaccine-hoarding governments for a deepening tourism divide. Intrepid Travel is setting an example — will others follow?
On the cusp of travel’s summer reopening in vaccinated destinations, Skift advocated for the industry to step up and push for vaccine equity.
Three months later, the percentage of people in low income countries who have received one dose of Covid vaccines stands at 1.1 percent, according to the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO).
Meanwhile, Covid certificates in hand, Americans, Europeans and other privileged globetrotters are enjoying a “hot vaxxed summer” in their backyard, heading to the Caribbean, cruising, or vacationing long-haul. Vaccine tourism continues as well, while “quarantine tourism” is emerging amid the Delta variant and mounting travel restrictions.
It's a harrowing tale of two tourism industries — one that's experiencing an early economic recovery directly attributed to vaccines, and the other awaiting doses while reopening tourism-dependent economies to inoculated travelers at the risk of infecting their communities.
Let’s set aside, for
