85 Percent of U.S. Travel Agencies Won’t Survive the Year Without Aid, Trade Group Warns
Photo Credit: The American Society of Travel Advisors says most U.S. agencies won't survive past 2021 without federal support. Getty Images / anyaberkut
Skift Take
Travel advisors play a critical role in the recovery of the leisure tourism sector. But these majority women-owned, small businesses will need relief to stay afloat if the U.S. travel industry is to benefit.
One of the tourism industry’s most impacted and often overlooked groups, the U.S. travel agency trade is clamoring for federal government support to save the sector that is overwhelmingly comprised of small businesses.
This month, the American Society of Travel Advisers (ASTA) filed a Covid-19 relief request with Congress to the tune of a $9.3 billion travel agency grant program for its 14,000 member travel agencies and advisors. The filing also asks for an industry-wide Travel Employment Grant program at the U.S. Department of Treasury that is modeled on the airline Payroll Support Program.
“Thus far, financial support for the travel industry has been tragically inadequate, and especially in less visible sectors such as travel agencies," Zane Kerby, CEO of the ASTA, said in a press release, adding that "the vast majority of the U.S.’s 130,000 travel agencies are small, female-owned busines
