Lebawit Lily Girma

New Zealand's latest "traveling under the social influence" campaign could have been brilliant, if it weren't so ill-timed. It's a privilege to be the first to beat Covid, but it can also be a blind spot.

The first full-time, diversity-focused organization for U.S. travel launched this week as destination marketers, trade groups and publicists are also collaborating on solutions to equity, diversity and inclusion barriers in tourism. It’s long and shamefully overdue — but promising, since change begins from the C-suites down.

Domestic trips catapulted to a whole new level after Covid, a trend that remains solid as the world exits a four-year downturn in 2025. But international travel is like a stubborn flame because bucket lists are alive and well, albeit reimagined. Demand for long-term stays emerges from the rising crop of conscious travelers.

The U.S. Travel Association just shared its new policy recommendations for a faster tourism recovery: invest in infrastructure and air travel technology, support Brand USA, and avoid imposing travel bans, quarantines, and domestic air travel testing. Ball is in your court, White House, and Congress.

Nearly a year since Covid's start, the lack of a united front among travel and tourism's leading organizations and groups continues — this time, with confounding, divergent opinions on vaccine mandates. This fragmented approach is sure to stunt the industry's pace of recovery.

Covid's multi-year blow has pushed the world's major cruise lines into efficiency overdrive – pruning ships, reducing ports of call, and expanding offshore islands to boost onboard revenue. But mounting global environmental pushback stifles the growth of mass cruise tourism.

The UNWTO executive council missed a huge opportunity to show leadership when it failed to vote for Bahrain's Shaikha Mai, a respected sustainable tourism leader with fresh ideas for global tourism's recovery. A chance to correct course can still happen at final confirmation proceedings this fall.

Though already restricted due to Covid, Biden’s presidential inauguration week was expected to boost tourism in the nation’s capital. Those hopes are now dashed on the heels of last week's domestic terror attack — a sad plight for a city trying to revive from the pandemic.

In a major departure from other tourism-dependent destinations, more than 60 percent of Hawaiian residents indicated they don't want visitors back on their islands. Covid worries? Yes. But the bigger fear is a return to overtourism. Can reforms happen without crushing the economy?

On the eve of a new year, albeit with vaccines on the distant horizon for most of the world, Covid's curve is nowhere near flattened around the globe. What lies ahead for the industry is clear: pushing for tourism's restart while curbing flare-ups and stop-and-start scenarios.