With no exceptions, all of the top overseas source markets that send visitors to the United States and that are important to the U.S. inbound tourism industry experienced another month of anemic activity in September. China, with an economy that has fared better than of most nations through the course of the global pandemic, took solace from a confidence-building boost in domestic travel activity due to its National Day holiday period.
The cyclical nature of way the tourism product is marketed and purchased needs something to happen. Right now, demand is stuck. International air carriers have reduced capacity as they await the lifting of restrictions imposed upon them in order to expand service. But that isn’t happening.
In sobering terms, OAG describes the situation thus: “The last week has probably been one of the most depressing ever in the aviation industry as a series of airlines reported billion-dollar quarterly losses, major carriers announced large redundancy programs and more and more scheduled airlines revealed plans to cut capacity by up to 30 percent over the IATA winter season. The loss of another one million seats takes total global capacity down to 55.6 million, 52 percent of both the January base point and last year’s weekly total. “(OAG Oct. 26)
From the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO), which posts the monthly figures for the USA’s top overseas source markets, has just released the key data for September 2020. They are, in effect, stuck in the same place that they’ve been stuck for the past seven months when travel bans and, lockdowns and closed borders came into effect.
