caroline: you missed those record highs. so too does the nasdaq. some of those reopening traits are not doing so well. romaine: the question is, what did you miss? caroline: you would never note by how the s&p 500 finished this week that there are real fears that we may have hit peak growth. we have been scouring earning reports.

client -- find out the state of the global recovery. future covid fears. our focus on this friday is hospitality. vacations, this nations, we will talk to the people trying to reopen. we'll also talk about their economies. we start with the rapid spread of the delta variant. doubting the replace -- pace of the recovery. romaine: you already seeing cities over here reimpose masked mandates. you're seeing this in some of the nations in asia. this covid curve. we use this chart the other day. we had that big peak, groundswell a year or so ago. of course, as you get to the right of your screen, inks were looking better and you see is trending up. that is not what you want to see here. it is not awful. it is relatively low compared to where we were a few months back.

we don't want to see that trend line going up that has to raise questions about the economic story if that continues to go up. for more, let's bring in chris. we will talk about this. i -- when we talk about the idea that there will never be lockdowns again because there is no political will for it. i have to remind people that there was a self-imposed lockdown that took place in february and march of 2020 before the government imposed anything. people were scared. i don't want to be on the subway, restaurants, work. they self isolated. i am wondering if the delta variant gets to a stage where those types of fears reemerge where people take it upon themselves to stay at home. >> one economist we spoke to referred to it as the freak out factory. house booth will people be by

the spread of the delta variant. such that it could cause them to stop going out to restaurants. stop taking flights and so on. bank of america did some research and went back and looked at this surge in cases in michigan earlier this year. their credit card data, bank of america, showed that people in michigan did scale back their spending even though the state did not do any sort of statewide lockdown. this has given economists some pause. the data does show any immediate signs of concern for the economy. we don't see them downgrading their forecasts yet. looking at the bloomberg economics charts here. on public transit use and new york city and chicago lately. they have been higher than they

were before the pandemic. los angeles is about 10% below but the chart looks good. numbers of restaurant diners seated at tables, not showing a big drop off. economists are keeping an eye on things. recognizing that there could be a psychological impact that we are not quite seeing it yet in the data. caroline: there is a real world petri dish going on in the u.k. something we can see from a economic standpoint as well as a health perspective. it is in my head every day because and speaking to my parents who are not going out as much as they would even though they were -- are fully vaccinia. i'm speaking to families and friends with -- about the spike in hospitalizations. cases are going up through the roof because of the delta variant. what have you learned from the

u.k. economic issue as it has slowly had its freedom date since monday. what are economists looking there to see what will do in the u.s.? >> i would point out that if you look at the u.k. number of cases and the u.k. number of hospitalizations and of deaths, what we see there is a wreckage in the link between the spread of the virus and impact on people's health in terms of having severe reactions. the key there is obviously, inoculations. u.k. is one of the best among the developed economies in getting shots into arms. that does make a significant difference. again, it comes down to the psychological factors. do your parents change their consumer behavior because of the headlines about the spread of

the virus? that, we don't know yet. going back to the bank of america team, the risk is bigger now in terms of having an economic impact because the u.s. economy is so much more open than it was during these spikes in the virus late last year. or in the summer of last year. there is that much more activity to contract and hurt the economy. caroline: people are not wanting to go out even if they are fully vexed and in the u.k.. thank you so much. despite the concerns of the delta variant, there is no slowdown on vacationers who want to get away. a new platform that aims to have a seamless can -- hotel booking experience. that is next. this is bloomberg. ♪

romaine: on this friday, we are focused on the economic recovery. we are keeping an eye on the delta variant and the covid crisis and how that folds into travel. a lot of us have not been getting out here. there is still a lot of concern out there on where to go and whether you can get back. caroline: it's all about covid exploding in cancun. a new wave hitting mexico at the moment. popular tourist destinations being affected. that is driven a rise in hospital beds locally. at the moment, only one third of mexicans have received one dose

of the vaccine. it is a concern at the local level. those spending the and being abroad are worried about being trapped in a hotel for a couple of weeks there at this is weighing heavily on those whether to spend that cash on their holiday. we are the ceo and founder of self book which has launched in engine design streamlined the booking process for hotels. you are a man who knows everything about payments. you know everything about user experience and data. i will ask you about your relationship with your clients. as you are unfolding this new offering and talking to these hotels, how are they feeling? how optimistic are they about the bookings and how much reality there is when somebody buys that hotel spot? >> the key here is the direct to consumer mindset.

channel direct channel values. this is what we missed pre-pandemic. that is because a lot of miscommunication airing the pandemic. they're leveraging their web. they are enhancing the direct communication and normal -- on their website to ensure customers that there will will be precautions put together for the shoppers. with regards to consumer sentiment, we see that they are being cautious but nevertheless, the data is reporting that. there's confidence and optimism with travel, especially for the short term we see. romaine: i spoke a little bit a couple months ago with the ceo of marriott. he talked about this idea that the automation they did during the pandemic of the check-in process and requesting cleaning of your room. that stuff was basically here to stay paired they are a huge

company that has the ability to make that shift using their own money. there are a lot of smaller hotel chains and boutique hotels that need help doing this. what type of effort are you seeing on their part to move towards an automated process post-pandemic echo -- pandemic? >> the multitude of systems they use that are not necessarily communicating with each other. you have us -- all these systems and then you have different property management systems. and then he had the payment which is the third layer on the side and only considered the backhand. we are able to help them with moving payments to the front end and with that unified check and experience, or booking experience regardless of systems they use. for instance, somebody wants to create a custom booking to

combine room bookings, and spa hook -- bookings, hotel products, bill have to send customers to three different user experiences. we were able to unify all of that. reason why it was not done before it was because the terms and policies for each product is really complex. usually, it is distributed in different ways. we were able to unify that. hotels, especially with our focus today, we simple fight all of that with a single line of code and regardless of systems they use, we unify all of that. we don't have to hire big agencies are spent millions of dollars. caroline: you know remains love of coffee so we appreciate that. -- romaine's. was covid a tipping moment for

smaller boutique hotels in some way? what is interesting is that you seek you are codes for menus. we have a reason to use a qr code for mnu and access that. you didn't see that -- was the shift to having booking in your food online and ordering food off your phone and that sort of in mount -- amount of reduction in cost for restaurant have not bared out when you see labor costs going through the roof. other they will become that much more did laws or getting rid of the wrist, making it more automated. from a profit perspective, hotels have to go through what you are offering now. have to understand a more direct to consumer approach. >> the thing about direct to consumer is to allow these channels that it is based on what they are expecting. if you're looking to or even modern booking app, it all has

apple pay direct or google pay or any sort of alternative payment method like a firm. that all happens in retail. for the pandemic, if it isn't broken, why fix it? the pandemic broke it all. consumers also have the touch. thing is that if they don't support apple pay up to now because of self book is mind-boggling. the idea of them implemented these alternative payment methods was not possible until now. i am not really a big fan of eliminating the front desk and automating everything. maintaining the hospitality service but reduce the transaction element. when you come into a hotel, they welcome you and the first thing

is like give me your credit card. that is very transactional even though you have already transacted online. what is the welcoming? welcome to the hotel. here is a room. it is ready. there is a big shift there. that all comes down to payment and transaction. romaine: i can raise a glass to that. anything to streamline the process of checking and will be welcome. i guess you're doing a lot of work towards that. self book founder and ceo. would love to have you back on to talk about progress you make from here. we will continue about this discussion on the travel industry and well, if you're looking for a trip, maybe you want to the u.s. virgin islands. satan for our conversation. we will have their governor joining us in just a moment to talk about the tourism traffic in the pandemic. this is bloomberg. ♪

caroline: we have been focusing on travel and tourism and the state of the economic recovery. looking at the sheer volume of people. people in the air, rushing back to travel again in the u.s. romaine: this gives you a sense. the tsa data which we have since the start of the endemic. you see that big rebound there. not quite pre-pandemic levels but close enough. caroline: it's not always easy, the amount of pcr tests, the difficulty jumping from one country to the other. it's not smooth, but if you want to do it it is there. romaine: let us bring up the governor who is part of the u.s. virgin islands. a place that you have to get on

a plane to get to or a boat. governor, thank you for being here today. a lot of folks in the u.s. and out the world i china get back out there and travel. in many cases, the need to get on a plane they either need a covid test or a vaccination. right now, what type of tourists are you seeing coming to your islands right now. what type of requirements are you requiring them to have? >> thank you for having me. all you need right now to get to the virgin islands is a license and a negative covid test. we have seen all types of source come to the islands. surprisingly, a lot of african-american taurus. we have never seen this much before and we welcome them coming now and incident thomas. we have 25 flights per day landing in st. thomas and about three and for in saint cory.

it is a hop and a jump to st. john, the smallest of our three islands. we have been enjoying it tourism boom since we opened up in september. a lot of that goes to hell we have handled the potomac best far. being a u.s. territory and no need for passports or being stuck. caroline: being stuck is an interesting one. some people are expressing a rise in cases in cancun and getting bored about being stuck having to stay in hotels quarantining. how are you dealing with positive cases if they arrive on the island? >> we have all of the resources on the mainland. the antibodies have been a real help for people have gotten sick care. we really haven't seen much tourists coming to the island and in hospitalized. i think only one or two since the beginning of the pandemic.

because we have the protocols in place coming onto the island. and if you have that negative test, every once in a while, we have somebody who pops up and test positive. what we do is we put a travel restriction in and let them get quarantining long enough so we don't endanger the rest of our guests. romaine: the caribbean, obviously a huge hotspot for anybody here even over in europe here. u.s. virgin islands becomes popular now for u.s. citizens because it is a u.s. territory. in regards to your neighbors, the other caribbean nations out there. is there a general sense here that the tourism, the uptick will benefit all of the nations and islands out there in the caribbean? >> not necessarily so. that is why we went to the national press to get governor

desantis lifting the ban of people making sure they had covid tests were being vaccinated before they get on cruise ships. we are concerned with our sister islands. british version islands which is a short trip from us, a lot of their air travel comes through us. they are going through it now with her tourism. they have enclosed for over a year. we have other partners like st. lucia and saint maarten, all these places we have relationships with, dominica, we hope to get a piece of this pie too. one of the things that affected us economically is that there's 26 william dollars of trade out of the $52 billion of trade from florida going to the caribbean that passes through our islands. without tourism, our trade deficit has impacted us. we have less containers on our ports, less products moving through, and that has affected us greatly as well. caroline: talk to us about -- we talked about at length here in

new york or in the u.s., labor inflation. the cost of wages going up. how much is that impacting your island nation at the moment? how much do you have willingly able people to support the resorts who have open and feed the taurus you have? -- forests -- tourists. >> this is affecting us. living on an island is always expense the -- expensive. it costs 10 times the amount to put up a roof than a dozen florida. problem we are having now is that residents are taking advantage of the airbnb opportunity and converting their apartments to turn into airbnb's. we need more workforce housing. we are busy building and incentivize more apartments becoming available and homes for our workforce. we have our hospitals to rebuild, schools, and a lot of

infrastructure getting out there. just like in the rest of the nation, we are fronting problems to have people working in our hospitality sector as well. caroline: fastening story. we want to thank you so much for spinning time with us. we wish you well. keep those covid levels low and i know you were among the first to get the vaccine on the island. make you so much. -- thank you so much. it makes me want to sit on the beach. amazing story on how expensive it is to get work done. romaine: you worry about these island nations because they held up well at the start of the start of the pandemic because they were so isolated. we want to make sure that bring in these taurus, they're not putting anyone else at risk. just a reminder. if you love the show, you will love our podcast. she voiced it this week. we had great guests. i was not here for that. who we have? caroline: he gets a starring

role this week. you gotta tune into us. romaine: you heard it from the voice. caroline: the data that we saw. too many words in your corporate thesis. we get more of them next week. romaine: have a great weekend. ♪

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