By Patrick Swain

Despite rising cases of the BA.2 Omicron sub-variant, COVID-19 booster vaccines have helped keep severe disease and hospitalisations much lower than anticipated during the winter months. As we head into the spring and summer months, there is hope that life will slowly begin to return to normal. And with the Government waiving all remaining COVID-19 restrictions for fully vaccinated travellers coming to England, the ability to visit other countries without constraint is becoming increasingly more possible.

Given the success of the COVID-19 vaccination programme, there is more to be said about using immunisation to protect public health and the economy in the future. Many industries have suffered financially during this pandemic, but thanks to vaccines, they are now beginning to recover.

One industry that has been hit particularly hard during the pandemic is the tourism sector. Tourism in Europe – once a booming industry that contributed around $2bn a year to GDP(1) before 2020 – has fallen dramatically due to national lockdowns and COVID-19 restrictions. Two years on, however, and with over 80% of EU adults vaccinated and more than a third boosted,(2) there is good reason to believe that tourism in Europe will begin to recover this summer.

Vaccinating older adults against preventable diseases is particularly crucial for European tourism. Statistics suggest that before the pandemic, almost a quarter (23%) of tourism nights spent by EU citizens were by those aged 65 and over – the largest share of any age cohort.(3) Given that COVID-19 vaccines have saved the lives of 470,000 Europeans over the age of 60,(4) immunisation has helped to protect a huge number of older people, and – economically speaking – thousands of potential customers looking to travel beyond the pandemic.

But it’s not just COVID-19 vaccines that can benefit older people’s health and the tourism sector. Other routine vaccinations, like influenza (flu) vaccines, have the potential to prolong people’s longevity. The older we get, the less effective our immune systems become: vaccination is a key component of healthy ageing by helping to strengthen people’s immune response to disease. Previous ILC research has suggested that flu vaccines can prevent 245,000 cases in over-65s and save almost £29 million in sick days annually.(5) That’s millions of pounds which could be spent travelling and consuming in other countries but is only possible if older people remain healthy.

However, with less than half of Europeans over the age of 65 vaccinated against flu,(6) there are still millions of older adults who are at risk of ill health in later life. More must be done to ensure that older Europeans receive routine vaccinations that can help to protect them. This includes increasing spending on immunisation, which is currently suboptimal – 77% of EU countries spend less than 0.5% of their health budgets on vaccination programmes.(7) This is despite the fact that countries that spend more on health and prevention have more older people working, volunteering and – crucially for the tourism sector – spending.(8)

It is clear, therefore, that health equals wealth. We know that as the world ages, so will the economy and its consumers. The European tourism industry has already started to reap the benefits of an ageing society, with a growing share of older customers. But as the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated, older age groups are more at risk of severe disease. Beyond COVID-19, protecting older adults through preventative health measures like routine immunisation is key to ensuring a healthier ageing population – one that can afford to work, spend and travel without any hindrance.

Alongside the Coalition for Life-course Immunisation, we will be hosting an event in May to discuss this topic. Join us for the Vaccines and vacation webinar where we will examine the economic benefits of immunisation in an ageing society, and how this can help the European tourism sector with its post-COVID recovery.

References

1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/617528/travel-tourism-total-gdp-contribution-europe/
2. https://vaccinetracker.ecdc.europa.eu/public/extensions/COVID-19/vaccine-tracker.html#uptake-tab
3. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Tourism_trends_and_ageing#:~:text=Tourists%20aged%2065%20or%20over,55%2B%20accounted%20for%2041%20%25.&text=More%20than%20half%20of%20European,of%20people%20aged%2015%2D64
4. https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/news-events/who-ecdc-nearly-half-million-lives-saved-covid-19-vaccination
5. https://ilcuk.org.uk/an-economic-analysis-of-flu-vaccination/
6. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/DDN-20191209-2
7. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14760584.2021.1905257
8. https://ilcuk.org.uk/healthequalswealth/