Letter to Hon. Gina Raimondo, Secretary of the Department of Commerce - Sens. Cramer, Klobuchar, Blunt, Cortez Masto Urge Biden Administration to Help Travel and Tourism Industry Following Pandemic

Letter

Dear Secretary Raimondo,
We write to express our concern about the impact the pandemic has had on the travel and
tourism industry and workforce. We also write to request additional information on what steps
the U.S. Department of Commerce is taking to help ensure that these industries, their workforce,
and the local communities that depend on them can recover as quickly as possible from this
health and economic crisis.
Prior to the pandemic, the travel and tourism industry generated $2.6 trillion in economic activity
and provided 15.8 million jobs.1 Recent reports estimate that travel spending in the U.S. has
declined by nearly $500 billion since 2019, with a loss of nearly one million travel-related jobs
since last February.2 Behind statistics like this are thousands of tourism workers and restaurants,
hotels, and small businesses in the travel and tourism industry struggling to make ends meet.3
As we work to safely reopen the country, with all adults expected to be eligible for vaccines by
May,4 we must also evaluate the impact of the pandemic on international travel. Reports have
found that we have seen a nearly 80 percent decrease in international visitors since the pandemic
began, which is a critical part of the U.S. economy and workforce, with international travel
spending bringing in $155 billion in 2019 prior to the pandemic.5
For these reasons, we introduced the bipartisan Protecting Tourism in the United States Act to
direct the U.S. Department of Commerce, in consultation with the United States Travel and
Tourism Advisory Board and the heads of other relevant federal agencies, to launch a comprehensive study of the effects of the pandemic on different sectors of the travel and tourism
industry and provide policy recommendations to assist these industries.
In addition, as the co-chairs of the Senate Travel and Tourism Caucus, we are working to ensure
that programs like Brand USA--a public-private partnership to encourage travelers to visit
America--which we worked to reauthorize in 2019, has the resources it needs. Brand USA is a
proven means to boost tourism and the U.S. economy, bringing in 7.5 million international
visitors to the U.S. annually and generating a total economic impact of $55 billion and over
52,000 jobs annually prior to the pandemic.6 We believe it is critical to evaluate the health of this
program and assist the hard-hit travel and tourism industry in its recovery.
The U.S. Department of Commerce plays a critical role in helping revive the U.S. economy,
including through work on tourism policy, strategy, and advocacy. We believe that short-term
and long-term resources and strategies will be key to help ensure the travel and tourism industry
and workforce can recover from the pandemic and respectfully request that you respond to the
following questions:
1. What are the agency's immediate and long-term plans to help the travel and tourism
industry recover, particularly regarding domestic and international travel?
2. Is the Department of Commerce planning to coordinate with other agencies, states, and
private stakeholders to ensure that all key perspectives throughout the travel and tourism
industry are considered in developing measures to help these industries recover? If so,
please describe these plans.
3. What data has the Department of Commerce collected on how the pandemic has affected
small businesses that rely on travel and tourism, including in local and rural
communities?
4. Does the Department of Commerce need additional resources to promote and assist the
travel and tourism industry? If so, please describe these resource needs in detail.
We look forward to working with you to bolster the recovery of the travel and tourism industry.

Source