The Receding Horizon of Travel’s Return

“We estimate that a third of the travel companies in Europe will disappear before the full restart of travel in 2022 or 2023,” said Eric Dresin, the Secretary General of the European Travel Agents’ and Tour Operators’ Association, an organization that represents travel professionals in the European Union and six other countries.

At the start of the year, Yuval Ben-Ami, a National Geographic tour guide based in southern France, was fully booked for excursions across five countries. Now, after months without any work, he wakes up every morning to busk in a local market.

“When your industry dies you have to ad-lib, you have to invent,” said Mr. Ben-Ami, who lives with his wife and 3-year-old daughter in Provence. “I bought an amplifier, a pluggable guitar, a microphone on a stand and I started busking.

“At the age of 44, I’m doing something I did when I was 21, which was more becoming then, but I have to say I’ve improved as a musician,” he said, laughing.

Others who rely on tourism as their livelihood, like Ms. Keelon, described feeling anxious and depressed because of the uncertainty around when, if ever, they would be able to go back to work.

In August, Ms. Keelon got a job doing clerical work at a hospital. A few weeks later she started her own business as a virtual assistant, helping people answer emails, run social media and handle other digital tasks.

Online, would-be travelers search, book and cancel

“We have these lightning-rod moments where news breaks of vaccines and the lifting of travel restrictions and we see a significant surge in searches, but people are still cautious when it comes to booking,” said Mr. Barnes of Intrepid Travel’s online site traffic. “It will take time.”