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A lot has been written recently about the impact of COVID-19 across multiple industries, with travel & hospitality particularly hard hit. Our friends at Oxford Economics, in coordination with its Tourism Economics subsidiary company, modeled the expected downturns in the US travel industry in 2020 as a result of COVID-19. The full report can be downloaded here where it was first published — for the readers in a rush we’ve extracted the relevant key findings from their summary below.
Travel Industry Losses
A decline of 45% for the entire year is expected. This includes an 81% drop in revenue over the next two months and continued losses over the rest of the year reaching $519 billion.
GDP Losses
Travel industry losses will result in a cumulative GDP impact of $651 billion in 2020. We project the US economy to enter a protracted recession based on the expected downturn in travel alone. The recession is likely to last at least two quarters with the lowest point in the second quarter of 2020.
Tax Losses
A decline of $80 billion in taxes will be realized as a result of travel declines in 2020.
Employment Losses
The US economy is projected to lose 8.0 million jobs by the end of April as a result of travel declines in 2020. The unemployment rate of 4.4% in March will rise substantially in the coming months. Travel-related employment losses alone will push the…
