ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Three years after Covid-19 lockdowns shut down the world, travel both to and within the United States continues to rebound, and the travel industry is doing everything it can to woo back international visitors.

But as tourists return to the US, there are signs that international travel may look a little different post-pandemic, with the economic downturn pricing out travellers on a tight budget and the rest increasingly seeking more meaningful and curated experiences.

And US travel operators face many of the same issues as those elsewhere, such as staff shortages and fewer international flights.

This is according to industry players and analysts who attended the annual Go West Summit, a business-to-business tourism convention held earlier in 2023 in Anchorage, Alaska.

It connected US travel operators and marketing organisations with travel agents from all over the world, including five from Singapore, part of a delegation led by the US Embassy in Singapore.

The feedback from attendees suggests that foreign travellers to the US want something a little different these days.

Speaking to The Straits Times at the event, Ms Mary Motsenbocker, president and founder of Go West Summit, says: “When people first start travelling to the US, they go to the big cities and try to see as much of the country as possible.

“But the trend now with second- and third-time visitors is that they want to experience the real America – they want to see Native American villages; they want to get the culture and feel of the US; and they want to get out of the big cities to where it’s safe and wide open, and they can actually have one-on-one experiences with people. 

“That’s what we’ve been asked for.” 

Domestic tourism helped sustain the US travel industry during the pandemic, which saw a surge in Americans exploring their own country.

But that bubble is finally subsiding as growth in domestic leisure travel levels off, and US tour operators “really want international travellers back”, Ms Motsenbocker says.

“It diversifies everybody’s economy, so we don’t just have travellers from the state next door. We have people from all over the world. And everybody’s welcoming and wanting and marketing to the international market once again.”

Ms Lisa Simon – who heads the International Inbound Travel Association, a trade association of tour operators, suppliers and destination marketing agencies – says her 200 or so members are optimistic that foreign visitors will return.

“Through all the torturous years of the pandemic, our members knew the international business would be back – it’s just a waiting game.”

A report published in November 2022 by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development predicts that international tourism will not fully recover from the pandemic till 2024 or later because of the global downturn.

But the US appears to be ahead of the curve in some respects.

Going by Transport Security Administration checkpoint numbers alone, air travel to and within the US has already surpassed 2019 levels on many occasions in 2023.

And as Covid-19 travel restrictions have been lifted, tourists have returned to US shores, although, as Ms Simon notes, it has been “a very uneven recovery”.

European travellers – especially Germans and Scandinavians – were among the first to come back. 

Among Asians, tourists from India, Singapore and South Korea have led the way. But China still restricts outbound travel for its citizens to many countries, including the US, while Japan lifted its travel advisory to its citizens only in May.

Other challenges for the US tourism recovery include visa issues and delays for travellers from nations such as India, and the fact that flights to the US from many foreign cities were dropped altogether over the last few years.

“So, there’s a lot of demand, for example, from India, but until the airline routes are there to pick up the demand and the visa issue is resolved, it’s not going to be at its full potential,” says Ms Simon.

The aviation industry has also seen a shortage of aircraft and staff – another hurdle in the recovery.

Indeed, travel operators across the board are struggling with staffing issues post-pandemic and this is proving a major pain point, not just in the US, but also in would-be travellers’ home countries.

For instance, the Go West Summit usually sees a big delegation from South Korea, but Ms Motsenbocker says even though South Koreans are ready to travel, the South Korean travel agencies told her they “have laid off everybody and are now having to reboot everything”.

“So, they’re getting a lot of requests for travel, but they don’t have enough staff.” 

Yet, many industry observers remain hopeful – not just that travel demand will bounce back, but also that the new equilibrium will be better than the old. 

Mr Florian Herrmann, founder of Herrmann Global, a US-based tourism marketing consultancy, believes there will be a “new normal” for international travel post-pandemic because of several global trends.

“That price-sensitive traveller who wants to spend very little money? He’s falling out of the segment right now with the recession.

“Recessions always move the more wealthy to travel. And they want custom services and good customer service. They choose a tour operator and they’re willing to spend more,” he says.

“So, right now, we see less visits and less volume globally and more cautious travellers. 

“But these travellers also stay longer. They’re going in the off-season, and they also choose tour operators and travel agencies more than in the past.” 

Mr Herrmann also argues that less volume is not necessarily a bad thing, especially when it comes to popular destinations that were already at breaking point pre-pandemic.

“In 2019, we always looked at the numbers – how many visitors we had, how many airplane seats – and everyone wants to be back at and to exceed 2019 levels, and know when that will happen.

“But for me, that’s the wrong way to look at travel in the future. Lots of people talk about sustainable tourism, and in 2018 and 2019, governments said they had too much visitation in places like Barcelona, Venice or Yosemite National Park.

“So why do we use that model of ‘It needs to grow every year like this’?” he says.

So, his message to tour operators in the travel trade is: “Don’t be afraid of a recession because, yes, you will probably get fewer travellers, but it’s a traveller who really cares about your destination. He has more money to spend, he wants to stay longer.

“And, honestly, that’s what we wanted to accomplish anyway.”