While posting their quarterly financial results at the end of January 2022, all major card issuers have expressed different points of view when it comes to travel restrictions easy, following the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
AMEX mentioned that the recovery will be slower for international and cross-border travelling, based on customer types and geographies. Although travel bookings gained momentum at the beginning of 2022, AMEX predicts that large and global corporate travel and entertainment spending will be the last segment to recover.
Visa representatives are slightly less optimistic, mentioning cross-border travelling will continue its steady recover throughout the 2022 fiscal year but, at the earliest, will reach 2019 levels in the summer of 2023.
Mastercard officials seem to be more trustworthy in the end of the global pandemic, expecting for cross-border travel to return to its 2019 volume by the end of 2022. With the latest Omicron variant being weaker than the previous ones and most countries shyly opening their borders, domestic and leisure travel should be the first ones to recover.
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