It’s amazing how a pandemic affects us all as far as travel. In my case, the lost revenue due to a lack of travel from just my situation really adds up. My son and I traveled to Boston, Massachusetts, at the beginning of April 2019 to play in a basketball tournament. Since we were all traveling from Chicago, we all needed transportation to the airport and, while there, most of us had something to eat. We stayed at a hotel outside of Boston and also rented a car for three days. While in town, we ate at local establishments multiple times. There was also an entrance fee associated with the tournament. Since there were about 25 kids and adults altogether, there were nine hotel rooms and five vehicles rented in total.

It’s hard to figure out how much money was spent, but I would guess it was between $10,000–12,000 for the weekend. This figure is just from one weekend of travel, from one out-of-town team. In all, there were around 10 out-of-town teams, so you see how much revenue was made by different industries from one tournament.

It is the end of March 2020 right now. I was going to take my son to the same tournament in Boston with the same number of people involved, but the tournament was canceled. The lost revenue from just our group affects so many people working in the travel industry.

The whole world has come to a sharp stop due to the virus, but hopefully this will pass soon so we all can get back to our normal lives. We look forward to future trips, tournaments and making up for lost time.

— Louie Atsaves, distribution specialist