Travel's Reopening and Coronavirus Recovery

The eagerly awaited recovery in air travel that airlines have talked up may arrive late to the gate if the U.S. mandates negative Covid-19 tests for all domestic air travelers. The potential move could set back recovery efforts underway in the beleaguered industry.

It may not be an outright acquisition, but Accor's partnership with Faena further builds on the Paris-based hotel giant's plan to be a leader in the trendy, lifestyle hotel sector coming out of the pandemic.

The rollout of Covid-19 vaccines has the airline industry looking toward an "inflection point" when the travel recovery takes off later this year. That spike in flyers could mean some sky-high fares but, after more than a year stuck at home, travelers may not care.

Hotel operators may not see much revenue from offering their event spaces as coronavirus vaccine sites, but this is about the long game: the easier it is to vaccinate people, the quicker a hotel industry recovery can take place.

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.

United Airlines executives are betting that structural changes on the international front mean it can emerge larger and stronger from the pandemic. But this won't occur until travelers return in significant numbers, something they don't expect for some months.

All eyes have been on China in terms of its travel recovery. While China's hotel recovery faces a major setback now with a surge of new Covid-19 cases, the country is still likely to make a faster rebound than other parts of the world.

On day one, travel executives will see policies from White House that will give them renewed hope that the world will be more open and soon safer from a deadly pandemic. Four contentious years will be in the past and a steadiness returned from which to rebuild a devastated industry.

Wyndham's loss is Choice Hotels' gain in a 15-hotel brand shuffle. But this type of transaction is still falling short of wider industry expectations.

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.