U.S. Travel Association Executive Vice President of Public Affairs and Policy Tori Emerson Barnes issued the following statement on reports that the Biden administration will first reopen its borders to vaccinated travelers:

“The U.S. travel industry welcomes reports that the Biden administration is building a plan to reopen our borders to fully vaccinated international travelers from countries long impacted by the 212(f) travel restrictions—an important first step to welcoming back millions of visitors from some of our top inbound markets.

“Every week that travel bans on the UK, EU, and Canada remain in place, our economy loses $1.5 billion in spending, which would support 10,000 American jobs.

“While vaccinations are a crucial tool to allow us to reopen to 212(f) countries, it would be a step back to replace the current testing requirement with a vaccine requirement for all other countries.

“We urge the administration to advance this plan for 212(f) countries and set a reopening date as quickly as possible, especially as the U.K., much of the E.U., and Canada have all taken recent similar steps to reopen their borders to vaccinated travelers and rebuild their economies.”