It appears that you may need to take the COVID vaccine if you want to cruise

Crystal Cruises last week announced they were going to require all passengers to take the COVID vaccine in order to sail the seven seas with them. This appears to be the first domino to fall as I expect all the cruise lines to require the vaccine for all passengers as a way to eliminate the fear of cruising.

I see the next big legal battle moving from the government requirement of masks to the requirement of getting vaccinated – If you thought there was a lot of pushback with requiring masks, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. The next giant legal battle will be when businesses and governments start requiring COVID vaccination in order to work, fly, travel, and even stay at hotels. United Airlines recently said they will require all their employees to be vaccinated. As was mentioned above cruise lines will be the first to require vaccines for passengers. I just see the lawyers are licking their chops if governments move vaccination from a voluntary safeguard to a mandatory requirement for all people.

I really think the airlines will look at the economics of requiring COVID vaccinations and push back at the idea – The airlines are very pleased that flying appears to be very safe and that wearing masks combined with a very good Hepa filter ventilation system on all planes has left very few people catching COVID when flying. From the numbers, I have seen it appears that approximately 20% of Americans say they will not get vaccinated. If those numbers are correct the airlines would take a financial bath by requiring vaccination prior to flying. The airlines lost over $40 billion dollars last year. If vaccinations are required, I expect several airlines would go out of business and even some large airlines would be forced to merge or go out of business.

I flew American Airlines on Monday and they announced all passengers are now required to wear two masks – I looked around and over half the passengers were not wearing two masks. I don’t think an airline should have a rule if they are not going to enforce it. P.S. I will let you guess if I was wearing one or two masks on the flight.

It appears that meetings and conventions may be rebounding faster than anyone thought – COVID had killed the meeting and convention business in 2020 along with the hotels that serve them. An amazing thing has happened in the last couple of months. Meetings, trade shows, and conventions are all starting to open up in the last half of 2021 and seem to be going almost full speed ahead in 2022. Hyatt Hotels recently reported they see a nice little rebound in meeting bookings in the last two quarters of 2021. Obviously, pent-up demand will feed this movement, plus people getting the vaccine seems to be a tremendous psychological springboard for business meetings starting to thaw from a deep freeze. I know I am sick and tire of attending virtual conferences. I want to see people in person and dare I say, shake their hands.

United Airlines offers a cool travel guide that shows all the travel restrictions in the U.S. – All you have to do is click on the state you are traveling to and it will show you all the COVID rules and restrictions of traveling there. CLICK HERE to take a peek.