Travel's Reopening and Coronavirus Recovery

Want to build a new resort by the beach or acquire a five-star hotel downtown in a major U.S. city? Lenders are listening. But if you want to break ground on a roadside motel in a secondary market, you may be waiting for the bank to return your calls for several years.

Airlines promised that more payroll assistance would allow them to avoid dramatic staffing reductions. That relief is now here to the tune of $15 billion but it looks like the furloughs, while temporarily rolled back, are still coming.

From her opposition to the fossil fuel industry to spearheading bipartisan legislation protecting public lands, Congresswoman Deb Haaland has shown she’s a fierce protector of America’s natural resources. As future Interior Secretary, she could be a giant boost for the sustainable development of outdoor travel post-Covid.

The hotel industry qualifies for larger small business loans under the new coronavirus relief measure. That's reason for it to celebrate, but the industry will still need what it considers a real stimulus bill with incentives to revive travel demand in the long-term.

The $900 billion coronavirus relief deal delivers the airline and hotel industries some of the top requests on their respective holiday wish list. Just as before, airlines get the biggest prize.

Although the hotel industry claimed federal liability protections were a vital need in the next round of coronavirus relief, leaving the measure out of an emerging deal in Washington doesn't leave hoteliers completely vulnerable to lawsuits.

The CommonTrust Network signed Aruba this week as its first member country, a win in the race to develop a digital health passport. But competition remains fierce as airlines await a single standard that can safely restart travel.

Optional coronavirus tests are another layer to Marriott's approach to combatting the threat of the virus. But testing is not a standalone solution to getting back to pre-pandemic performance levels.

Developing an effective vaccine in such a relatively short time is nothing less than a miracle. Delivering those vaccines to the world is the next enormous challenge. The airlines took on that task earlier this week. So far, they are giving a thumbs up.

Unprecedented losses forced airlines to focus on cash burn as the metric to watch early on during the coronavirus pandemic. The recent surge in new infections has delayed breakeven goals but, with billions of dollars on hand, most are looking ahead and getting ready for when travelers return in droves.