On January 28th, AmCham Estonia held this year’s first online Travel&Tourism Committee meeting.
The main topics that were discussed during the meeting:
- Salary support is the number one priority to Travel Agencies and hotels
- February-April is a low season for hotels, and with current revenue, it’s very hard to pay out salaries to employees
- The transportation service situation with new restrictions (not allowed to travel to Finland) is really unstable. The cruise business has stopped 100%
- Hotel revenue and room rate have dropped about 70%-85% compared to 2019. Conference service revenue has dropped 100% with current restrictions
- Traveling to the US from Europe is still permitted, but very limited
- Currently, companies and people working in the tourism and hospitality industry are not able to get the necessary financial support
- Suggestions to the new government: Change the F&B restrictions from 19:00 to 22:00; allow SPAs to stay open (they are safe); reinforce the message about the necessity of salary support
- Look into the topic of rapid testing for COVID-19 as this would help a lot of businesses in today’s situation
It was agreed with the Travel&Tourism Committee, that currently we will wait and see what the new government decides at their next meeting when it comes to restrictions. After the government meeting, we will regroup as a committee and will once again access the outcome of the meetings and will identify our next action steps.