an opportunity to recognise tourism’s unique ability to
not only provide employment but to drive equality and
inclusivity.”
He went on to suggest that the tourism “sector has
proven its ability to bounce back and help societies
recover”. He believes that tourism needs to be given the
right support to once again lead recovery efforts.
A recent report by the Adventure Travel Trade Association
(ATTA) suggested that the Adventure Travel industry
is often the most hardest hit by ripples in the economy
and sees the COVID-19 pandemic with a grim outlook,
almost all cancelations to May 2020 were blamed on
travel restrictions while most foreseeable cancelations
are being blamed on traveller hesitancy. It’s expected
that travel, this year alone, will be down 40% compared
to 2019 and even greater in 2021.
Numerous motorcycle travel businesses have reported
a similar sentiment. All the businesses we spoke with
described seeing an immediate downturn of between
70-100%, no other time in our history has there been a
downturn of such sudden impact.
“Absolutely!”, suggested Craig Jackson of Compass
Expeditions. “We have had only a very small number of
new bookings since travel restrictions were announced.
All of those have been from loyal Compass customers
showing support by booking tours for 2021 and 2022.”
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