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As of Thursday afternoon, the U.S. has lost more than $1.2 billion in domestic travel spending as a result of the government shutdown, according to a real-time cost ticker on the U.S. Travel Association website. That financial burden is growing larger with every passing second.
The U.S. Travel Association previously warned of such an impact in a Sept. 25 letter to congressional leadership. In the letter, CEO Geoff Freeman said a shutdown would cause roughly 60% of Americans to cancel or avoid trips by air.
The shutdown’s impact to the U.S. travel economy climbed to $1 billion by Wednesday morning, a week after the shutdown took effect on Oct. 1.
“Travelers are facing longer TSA lines and flight delays. Airports are reducing flights and we’ve seen entire control towers go dark,” Freeman said in a Wednesday statement.
Travelers have had holdups at airports across the country this week as an increased number of federal airline workers, who do not get paid during a government shutdown, have called in sick, NBC reported Wednesday.
At The Lodging Conference earlier this week in Phoenix, hospitality professionals expressed concern that the government shutdown could exacerbate an already challenged U.S. travel landscape and potentially cut into hotel revenues.
A week into the shutdown, Freeman said the closure is “doing real, irreversible damage.”
“The longer this drags on, the worse the cascade of damage will be — for local communities, for small businesses and for the country,” Freeman said, calling on Congress to reopen the government.
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