ASTA calls for US passport service to restart
The American Society of Travel Advisors wants to see the quick resumption of U.S. passport processing to help kickstart the travel recovery.
ASTA president and CEO Zane Kerby says agency members’ business is being impacted as clients are holding off booking due to passport issues.
ASTA says many advisors’ clients applied for passport renewals before the pandemic halted the service and are unable to get updates from the State Department about the status of their application.
Kerby wrote to assistant secretary of state Carl Risch, addressing the issue.
"We are hopeful that international travel will resume in the near future. As it does so, the need for a resumption of normal or close-to-normal passport processing will grow in importance."
"Resuming passport processing operations may be a small part of this process, but it is a critical and central one … as such, while we recognize the many challenges COVID-19 poses to the Department, we urge you to make the restoring of passport processing operations a priority," Kerby wrote.
As the pandemic took hold in March, renewals and new applications were halted for all but ‘life-or-death emergencies.’
ASTA members have cited demand for late 2020 and 2021 international travel but fear the inability to apply for or renew their passports will impact revenues.
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