In chapter 1 of South, I wrote about the importance of traveling to places while people there are suffering. Go to the Maldives and Thailand immediately after a tsunami. Go to Egypt and Kenya right after a terror attack. Don’t cancel your trip or go elsewhere. People in these incredible countries need the income and tax revenues that tourism brings to support themselves and their families, and to rebuild the tourism infrastructure we travelers depend on.
I have a similar message for today. To the extent that you can, without violating any laws or proper government directives, and without endangering your own health or that of others, do all that you can to support the travel industry in this country during this novel coronavirus pandemic. Travel, take a cruise, stay in hotels, eat in restaurants, go to museums, visit historic sites and national parks, and, of course, support bakeries. Aah, bakeries.
More than you think, the travel industry in the United States is a massive conglomeration of small, independent businesses that are at risk of disappearing in the next few months. More than 95 percent of all hotels in this country are independently owned or franchises owned by individuals. Marriott and Hilton don’t own hotels. They franchise them. They put their name on the sign out front and take 20 percent of the revenue from the franchisee/owner. The federal government will take care of the big companies like Marriott and Hilton. It will not save the little guy holding the mortgage on the hotel who will lose his/her business and livelihood to a bank if we don’t fill the hotel’s rooms. And, of course, all of the poorly-paid service workers in these hotels, restaurants, etc. will lose the jobs they so desperately need.
Those of us fortunate enough to be able to spend and support others, and for whom the ability to move and travel is so important, need to keep the travel industry — and those who depend on it for their living — alive until this pandemic ends.
Okay. There is one exception to my broad industry-encompassing plea: Don’t support the airlines. After the way those bastards have treated us since the 1970s, they deserve to die.
