Julia Simpson. Photo: WTTC.

In an interview with TTC, the president and CEO of the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), Julia Simpson, reflects on the challenges of the sector to achieve its recovery, issues that will be key in its next world summit, in Manila, Philippines, from April 20 to 22.

What key issues will the common agenda between authorities and businesspeople raise at the Manila meeting to accelerate the safe reactivation of international travel?

Last year, Travel & Tourism suffered sizeable losses due to COVID-19 resulting from international and domestic mobility restrictions, many of them introduced chaotically.

It is wonderful to see the sector beginning to recover. Not everywhere in the world is in the same place but economies are opening, and with them the flow of people wanting to travel. That is why we are calling our 21^st Global Summit, Rediscover travel.

As we look to the future, and rediscover both travel and our world, the sector will need to learn to co-exist with COVID-19 and unlock the potential of new trends. What the pandemic showed us was the enormous courage and creativity of our sector.

We have learned how to be resilient and how to use new technologies in our businesses as we look to offer great opportunities to traveller that are safe and sustainable.

From your point of view, what should governments do to help boost the sector?

COVID-19 showed the impact of a world without tourism. 62 million jobs were lost, and many families and communities felt the devastating economic impact of the pandemic. We also saw an impact on wildlife and biodiversity. It will be essential for Travel & Tourism leaders to join forces. The one good thing to come from this is the public and private working together like never before.

WTTC has been calling for the harmonisation and simplification of rules in order to regain the trust of travellers and ensure travelling through borders is quick and easy. The pandemic has demonstrated how crucial it is to have a public-private sector collaboration versus isolationism. Every country did their own thing, and the result was chaos, confusion for the traveller and damage to the economy.

To what extent do you consider that the simplification of health regulations could contribute to the reactivation of the sector throughout the world?

Latest scientific evidence shows closing borders does not stop the spread of the virus or new variants. WTTC supports the World Health Organization’s (WHO) position in calling for borders to remain open and safe travel to continue.

For the last two years, WTTC has called upon governments to shift their risk assessment to individuals, instead of countries, and allow the fully vaccinated to travel freely.

Photo: ElNinoBay

For more than 30 years, the WTTC has carried out research on the economic impact of travel and tourism in the world. In this sense, how do you think the contribution of the tourism sector to the world economy and to employment could behave once the countries finally start to recover from the pandemic?

Omicron has paused what we had hoped would be a strong start to 2022. However, we are now seeing economies opening.

Our latest research shows that if the vaccine and booster rollout continue and governments roll back the restrictions then the Travel & Tourism sector’s contribution to the global economy could reach $8.6 trillion this year, just 6.4% behind pre-pandemic levels, while we could recover 58 million jobs, reaching more than 330 million, just 1% below 2019 levels.

How does the WTTC estimate that the reserves will behave in the coming months? Is there room for optimism in this 2022? Will that long-awaited “light at the end of the tunnel” be seen in the sector this year?

Travellers around the world have shown their eagerness to travel, and we see a huge amount of pent-up demand. As restrictions ease, we are seeing a significant surge in travel bookings.

2022 is poised for a strong recovery if governments continue to open up and remove restrictions to travel and keep vaccine and booster rollout at pace.

Governments introduced a lot of red tape but there are some opportunities now to bring in easy-to-use travel documents all stored in a simple QR code. The opportunity for contactless travel is here.

Any other topic of interest that you want to address?

In November we launched a Net Zero Roadmap for the Travel & Tourism sector to support the industry in combatting climate change. This is really exciting. It charts a course for the whole sector to reduce its carbon footprint. It is up to everyone to play their part.

The sector is taking this opportunity to be a catalyst for change. Many destinations are affected by the impacts of climate change with rising sea levels, deforestation and the loss of animal and plant species. We have a responsibility towards both our people and planet.