Cathie Wooden is doubling down on her conviction in disruptive innovation — but this time, with a different solution.
The star fund manager who runs the well-liked Ark Spend loved ones of exchange-traded money will foray into non-public corporations with a new investment decision method that focuses on illiquid securities and limits investor exits in situations of volatility, a Feb. 3 filing by the organization with the U.S. Securities and Trade Commission discovered.
A spokesperson for Ark Devote verified to Yahoo Finance that the investment decision administration business filed for the fund but declined to provide additional data while the application undergoes overview by the SEC.
The move will come all through a tough time for Ark’s other cash, which include its tech-weighty flagship Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK), which have been wrought by a broader promote-off in the engineering sector as buyers bracing for the Federal Reserve to stop its straightforward dollars guidelines dial back again on danger and dump superior-advancement property in favor of value stocks.
According to the SEC doc, Ark Investment Management utilized for a closed-finished interval fund, a kind of financial commitment strategy that does not trade on an exchange and periodically delivers to repurchase its shares from buyers. The Ark Venture Fund, what the new fund is dubbed, will perform quarterly repurchase delivers for concerning 5{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} and 25{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} of the fund’s superb shares of effective desire at web asset worth, for each the submitting.
Wood’s new fund is set to mimic the firm’s investments in disruptive tech themes that her ETFs comprise but in private firms, permitting for for a longer period maintain periods on trader property throughout durations of market place turbulence. Genomic revolution companies, automation transformation firms, electricity transformation companies, synthetic intelligence firms, up coming generation world wide web businesses and fintech innovation firms — which include people targeted on crypto and blockchain — are among the Ark Venture’s possible investments, according to the firm’s SEC filing.
“In searching for to realize its investment decision aim, the fund may possibly commit, without restrict, in privately put or limited securities, illiquid securities and securities in which no secondary current market is conveniently offered, such as those people of private corporations,” Ark observed in the submitting.
ARKK, the firm’s flagship ETF, has lost additional than half its value from its peak as anxieties of a ramp-up on desire fee hikes by the Fed send out progress stocks cratering. The fund ended past 12 months down 27{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} immediately after putting up a return of 150{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} in 2020. Ark’s other funds are also down additional than 20{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} this 12 months.
Ark Innovation was typically flat on Monday, down a little bit by .62{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} to $72.30 share as of 12:11 p.m. ET. -.45 (-.62{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996})
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Alexandra Semenova is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Comply with her on Twitter @alexandraandnyc
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The US has drawn up sanctions concentrating on Vladimir Putin’s inner circle and its ties to the west as Washington broadens the record of financial penalties it is ready to impose if Russia invades Ukraine.
Senior administration officials instructed the Financial Occasions that a record of folks and loved ones associates that would be hit with sanctions experienced been created in co-ordination with US allies as aspect of the effort and hard work to punish the Russian president in the event of an assault.
“The people we have determined are in or in the vicinity of the interior circles of the Kremlin and participate in a position in govt selection building or are at a bare minimum complicit in the Kremlin’s destabilising conduct,” the US officials said.
The administration officers did not identify the Russian oligarchs and family members members in query but reported that lots of were “particularly susceptible targets for the reason that of their deepened economic ties with the west”.
“Sanctions would slice them off from the worldwide financial system and be certain that they and their loved ones users will no extended be capable to take pleasure in the benefits of parking their funds in the west and attending elite western universities,” the senior Biden administration officials mentioned.
The steps to goal Russian oligarchs would occur in addition to broader sanctions against sectors Russia’s overall economy, which includes banking and electrical power, that the US and its allies have been speaking about for weeks.
The US plans also arrived as the British isles has set Russian oligarchs in its sights for sanctions in the occasion of an invasion of Ukraine.
“Any firm of desire to the Kremlin and the routine in Russia would in a position be focused, so there will be nowhere to cover for Putin’s oligarchs, for Russian businesses involved in propping up the Russian point out,” Liz Truss, Britain’s overseas secretary, said on Sunday ahead of a speech to the Household of Commons on Monday.
In Washington, senior Biden administration officials reported the targets experienced been picked out among the Russian leaders, officers, senior executive officers or members of the boards of directors of point out-owned organizations. They could be operating in “any sector of the Russian financial system as recognized by the Secretary of the Treasury”, and prolonged to spouses and small children.
The US officers reported some of the people were being picked from a categorised checklist of senior political figures and Russian oligarchs sent to Congress by the Treasury department in 2018, known as Part 241 of the Countering America’s Adversaries By way of Sanctions Act, a law enacted in 2017.
“Putin’s cronies will no extended be able to use their spouses or other household members as proxies to evade sanctions,” the senior administration officials said.
The UK’s parallel effort and hard work focusing on oligarchs will be especially crucial to the US specified that numerous customers of the Russian elite have property and other economical ties in Britain.
“The US and United kingdom are in lockstep and we are prepared — in co-ordination with other allies and partners — to impose substantial prices if Russia even more invades Ukraine. Russia appreciates that. We welcome the UK’s sturdy partnership on enforcing current sanctions for malicious action and in preparing offers of strong economic actions to prevent further Russian aggression,” a spokesperson for the White House’s Countrywide Security Council instructed the FT.
The penalties in opposition to Russia’s elite do not preclude Washington from imposing sanctions that straight focus on Putin — which Biden reported was a likelihood final week.
“This is not the exhaustive list of prices we will impose, all options remain on the table. All options remain on the table,” the senior administration officers stated.
Nato customers started sending supplemental ships and fighter jets to allied international locations in japanese Europe yesterday as Boris Johnson said that Russia had massed ample troops shut to Ukraine for a “lightning war” in which it would try out to seize Kyiv.
The United kingdom primary minister’s feedback arrived in response to fears of a achievable Russian invasion of Ukraine. Nato said its members ended up putting armed forces forces on standby for a potential assault.
The White Home also announced that US president Joe Biden would keep a online video contact to explore Ukraine later on on Monday with European leaders, together with Johnson, French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Johnson claimed there ended up 60 Russian fight groups on the borders of Ukraine, which he described as proof of a “plan for a lightning war that could choose out Kyiv”.
“That would be a disastrous move,” he stated. For Moscow, any invasion is “going to be a agonizing, violent and bloody business enterprise. I assume it’s very essential that persons in Russia have an understanding of that this could be a new Chechnya”.
Russia has deployed a lot more than 106,000 troops shut to its border with Ukraine in modern months.
Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus’s strongman leader, said he would deploy “an complete contingent” of his army at the Ukrainian border in reaction to Nato power deployments in the Baltics and troop make-ups in Ukraine.
“This has almost nothing to do with any profession. We just want to defend our southern border,” he extra.
At a assembly of EU overseas ministers and US secretary of state Antony Blinken, the bloc reiterated its warning that it would impose “severe costs” on Russia in the occasion of any attack and explained it had “accelerated” perform on all those sanctions.
The EU also reaffirmed its “commitment to even further support Ukraine’s resilience”, together with in the locations of “professional armed service education”.
Over the weekend, the Uk explained it experienced proof that Russia’s president Vladimir Putin was looking for to set up a puppet regime in Kyiv.
A senior French official claimed: “The United kingdom is establishing positions that are pretty specific, pretty alarmist . . . We have to be very careful not to develop self-fulfilling prophecies.”
When western powers have introduced intelligence on Russia’s alleged intentions, Moscow has frequently denied that it designs to invade. But the Kremlin has explained the threat of conflict is “very high” in the jap Donbas border region, where by a lot more than 14,000 have died considering the fact that 2014 in a slow-burning war with Russia-backed separatists.
On the Nato moves, Jens Stoltenberg, the alliance’s secretary-typical, explained: “I welcome allies contributing additional forces . . . Nato will keep on to get all important steps to defend and protect all allies, like by reinforcing the eastern section of the alliance.
“We will constantly respond to any deterioration of our stability atmosphere, which include by means of strengthening our collective defence.”
Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, instructed reporters that the west was to blame for escalating tensions by deploying far more forces and publishing “fake” promises of two Russian routine alter plots in Ukraine.
“This isn’t going on because of what we, Russia, are performing. This is all happening because of what Nato and the US are doing and the data they are distributing,” Peskov stated.
Peskov extra that Putin wished to “avoid [a] similar tense situation in the future” by focusing on protection talks with the US and Nato.
The US is predicted to mail Russia a composed reaction this 7 days to its draft proposals to stop Nato’s eastward expansion, roll back its deployments in japanese European nations and pledge never ever to confess Ukraine — a phase that would fundamentally rewrite the whole article-chilly war safety purchase in Europe.
“Unfortunately, we all stay in these intense surroundings . . . This is the actuality in which we stay. Our head of point out, as the commander-in-main and the individual who defines our overseas plan, is using the important actions so that our security and passions are ensured at the suitable level,” Peskov reported.
Alexander Grushko, Russia’s deputy overseas minister, accused Nato of “demonising” Moscow to justify the “pointless” deployments, according to Interfax.
Grushko claimed the spectre of a renewed Russian invasion of Ukraine “existed only in inflamed minds in the west” and was “being employed to exhibit that the alliance is in desire and completely ready to come to the defence of its helpless allies in the experience of the Russian threat”.
“The far more Nato pumps into pointlessly strengthening its jap flank, the louder the cries about Russian aggressiveness are,” Grushko mentioned.
Nato’s statement on Monday arrived as quite a few western nations said they had taken methods to evacuate family members of diplomats based mostly in Kyiv out of the region.
Britain on Monday ordered a variety of its embassy employees and their family users to go away Ukraine. The move arrived soon after the US on Sunday told relatives customers of its embassy staff members to depart Kyiv for the reason that of the chance of “significant army action” by Russia. The US and British isles claimed their embassies would stay open.
Moscow’s Moex inventory index fell more than 7.5 per cent and yields on Russia’s authorities financial debt strike their greatest level in six several years, as the likely for western-imposed sanctions prompted buyers to dump Russian belongings. The central bank stepped in as the rouble closed in on a history low towards the greenback by limiting international forex purchases.
Gasoline futures linked to TTF, Europe’s wholesale fuel value, jumped far more than 11 for each cent to €88.40 a megawatt hour. Russia provides about a third of Europe’s gas. The rouble lost 1.5 for every cent to trade at 78.9 to the US greenback, a 14-thirty day period very low.
Ukraine is not a member of Nato, but western officials have warned that any conflict could impact neighbours to the west.
Nato explained illustrations of the alliance strengthening include things like an already announced shift by Denmark to send a frigate to the Baltic Sea and France’s readiness to send troops to Romania.
Spain has sent the frigate Blas de Lezo from Ferrol on its Atlantic coastline to the Black Sea many months in advance of schedule, for which Stoltenberg thanked primary minister Pedro Sánchez at the weekend.
José Manuel Albares, Spain’s overseas minister, explained to the Economical Instances that these deployments “showed Spain’s motivation to the safety of Europe, whether or not the japanese or southern flank”.
An accident-prone oil refinery in the U.S. Virgin Islands with a history of serious environmental violations could soon reopen under new ownership, despite strong objections from nearby communities, a litany of environmental scandals and a shaky financial outlook.
After shutting down in 2012 and declaring bankruptcy in 2015, St. Croix’s Limetree Bay refinery restarted operations under new ownership in February. But within days, the refinery began experiencing what became a series of high-profile accidents that enraged nearby residents, raining oil down on homes, contaminating drinking water and releasing hazardous fumes so pungent that officials shut down schools and offices for days.
Environmentalists saw the restart as a testament to former President Trump’s pro-fossil fuel agenda for “American energy dominance” and his administration’s penchant for granting favorable terms to well-connected corporate interests. Trump officials expressed a willingness in emails to the refinery’s new owners to facilitate its reopening, and legal scholars said the administration ignored decades of precedent in issuing new permits.
The Environmental Protection Agency dispatched investigators in early May to the island, where they declared Limetree was in violation of the Clean Air Act and ordered the facility to halt operations, citing an “imminent” health threat to residents. Then this summer, Limetree’s owners—a consortium of privately-funded companies that include Limetree Bay Refining and Limetree Bay Services—announced the facility would cease operations for good. They promptly declared bankruptcy, announced layoffs for more than a quarter of the refinery’s employees and began the process to auction off the property.
In October, several bids emerged from companies seeking to dismantle the dysfunctional facility and sell it off for scrap. For many residents who live the closest to the property, which stretches for more than two square miles across the southern shore of the small Caribbean island, the moment presented a chance to get rid of a poorly run—and what some consider unnecessary—refinery that disproportionately harmed mostly Black and Brown communities.
The 56-year-old facility, previously owned by a joint venture between Hess Corporation and Venezuela’s state-run oil company, was well known by locals for its checkered past. The EPA discovered as far back as 1982 that the facility was leaking tens of millions of gallons of oil into St. Croix’s groundwater. And in 2011, the agency slapped the refinery with a fine for violating the Clean Air Act and ordered it to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to bring its pollution control equipment up to modern standards, compounding the factors that ultimately led to its bankruptcy in 2015.
Now, as Limetree Bay Services prepares to sell off the St. Croix plant, along with its storage facilities, for some $30 million—six times less than what its current owners paid in 2016—many St. Croix residents are watching with increasing skepticism.
The already protracted auction process, in which most of the talks have taken place remotely on conference calls or 2,000 miles away in a Houston courtroom, has left many residents with an all-too-familiar feeling that people outside of St. Croix are controlling its fate, said Jennifer Valiulis, executive director for the St. Croix Environmental Association.
“It’s hard to really get a good grip of what’s going on because so much of this feels like it’s happening so far away from us,” Valiulis said. “It just doesn’t seem like anybody from St. Croix is involved in that at all.”
Case in point: For more than a month, St. Croix residents had been fretting over a mysterious and newly established private company called St. Croix Energy, which emerged as the lead bidder, despite having no clear experience with oil refining and questionable capital to back what could likely be a billion-dollar overhaul of the plant. But on Monday, just one day before the sale with St. Croix Energy was set to go through, Judge David Jones of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston allowed Limetree to reopen the auction to let in a surprise bidder who says he fell ill just before the original deadline.
Now Limetree appears to be on track to sell the property to West Indies Petroleum’s Charles Chambers, who also said he wants to restart the plant. Chambers has deposited $3 million in cash to Limetree, offering to pay another $30 million cash upon closure. St. Croix Energy’s bid only offered $20 million cash. West Indies Petroleum is a maritime refueling firm based in Kingston, Jamaica.
A hearing for the sale has been rescheduled for 10 a.m. Central time, on Dec. 21. Residents can call into the hearing by dialing 832-917-1510 and entering the conference number 205691, according to a public record filed with the regional bankruptcy court.
Ariella Hayes and other St. Croix residents opposing the refinery’s restart said they fear reopening Limetree could be a recipe for environmental disaster—a repeat of the nightmare they experienced this year as the plant spewed oil mist from its stacks and emitted a foul stench that community members said smelled like rotten eggs, stung their eyes and throat and caused some people to briefly lose consciousness.
“I think the best thing for it is to cease,” said Hayes, who has lived in St. Croix for 30 years.
A community survey conducted over the summer by several St. Croix organizations in conjunction with Vermont’s Bennington College included numerous stories from residents about Limetree’s adverse impact on their lives. They included an incident of a child gasping for air in the middle of the night, reports of emergency rooms overrun with people struggling to breathe, and oil “flared” from smokestacks splattering the windshields of motorists passing the refinery. David Bond, a Bennington college professor, has spent years documenting Limetree’s environmental and social impact on St. Croix.
Ryan Flegal, who owns a bed and breakfast in St. Croix, said he’s worried that the Virgin Islands government is prioritizing short-term financial gain over the long-term economic health and safety of the territory and its residents by supporting the refinery’s restart. To Flegal, another accident could hurt the island’s tourism industry, which would mean fewer people coming to stay at his hotel.
St. Croix Energy and West Indies Petroleum didn’t respond to questions regarding residents’ concerns for safety.
Virgin Islands Gov. Albert Bryan has long supported bringing oil refining back to St. Croix, citing the economic benefits the refinery was expected to bring to the U.S. territory. If Limetree remains closed, it would result in annual losses of $632 million in the territory’s gross domestic product, $25 million in lost tax revenue and almost $2 billion in lost economic activity, a recent government report predicted.
But financial analysts familiar with the refinery say keeping it open could also be a risky bet. Limetree’s current owners face at least four class action lawsuits for this year’s accidents and owe tens of millions of dollars in unpaid wages to contractors who helped get the plant up and running in February—a reminder of the kind of consequences future buyers could see if their efforts fail to restart the plant safely.
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It’s possible that Limetree could be turned into a viable and profitable business still, said Alan Gelder, an analyst with Wood Mackenzie, an international energy consulting firm. Global demand for oil recovered from the pandemic quicker than anticipated over the summer as economies swung back into action, he said, and the refining industry was looking better than usual up through Thanksgiving. But the Covid-19 omicron variant could spell trouble again for the oil market if governments order more lockdowns, Gelder said.
Still, the more pertinent question analysts are asking is just how long can Limetree remain profitable as governments work to reduce their carbon emissions and transition to cleaner energy sources. A recent survey by Bloomberg Intelligence found that most investors believe that global oil demand will peak sometime between 2025 and 2035.
There’s “a period of four, five years before things start to turn down,” Gelder said regarding the global oil refining outlook. “That’s really driven by the energy transition, where we get growing penetration of electric vehicles as the world tries to decarbonize.”
Pavel Molchanov, an analyst with Raymond James, an American investment bank and financial services company, said the reputational risk that comes with Limetree’s history, combined with market pressures to push investments into more environmentally friendly stocks, have already scared away investors. “It would be unwise for anyone to spend time and resources on such an ill-fated effort,” he said.
The Limetree refinery also faces several factors that could make running the facility cost prohibitive, analysts have said. EIG and ArcLight Capital, the private equity firms that financially backed Limetree’s February restart, have already spent $4.1 billion on refurbishing the facility. But the refinery would need at least $1 billion more to finish its massive overhaul and make it a viable operation, Reuters reported this summer.
Furthermore, a letter that the EPA sent to potential buyers in September laid out an extensive list of requirements future owners may be obligated to pay for, including installing new pollution control equipment and establishing new air monitors along the property’s fence line.
One particularly alarming item the letter mentioned was a second groundwater contamination in St. Croix that was only recently disclosed to federal regulators, and which the future owner of the refinery could be held liable for cleaning up. The EPA is currently investigating the extent of that spill.
“What’s clear from this is to get it running again as a refinery could require some considerable investment and could take quite some time,” Gelder said. “Would I do it? I don’t think I would. But I’m not in their shoes really.”
Kristoffer Tigue
Reporter, New York City
Kristoffer Tigue is a New York City-based reporter for Inside Climate News, where he covers environmental justice issues, writes the Today’s Climate newsletter and manages ICN’s social media. His work has been published in Reuters, Scientific American, Public Radio International and CNBC. Tigue holds a Master’s degree in journalism from the Missouri School of Journalism, where his feature writing won several Missouri Press Association awards.
Nayib Bukele. Source: A screenshot, Instagram/nayibbukele
Mainstream analysts have criticized El Salvador’s budget plans for 2022 and its bitcoin (BTC) bond ambitions – and a media outlet has pointed out that international ratings agencies are now lining up to take aim at the nation’s President Nayib Bukele and his adoption plans.
According to El Diario de Hoy’s ElSalvador.com website, the London-based financial services company EMFI Group has echoed earlier warnings from the likes of Moody’s that the country will need USD 1.75bn in financing to meet its budgeting goals as set out in late September. However, the firm does not expect the country will reach an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The group claims that a strong economic recovery may well be on the cards, but El Salvador’s fiscal deficit and debt levels will remain high nonetheless.
Similar sentiments were the order of the day more recently from the America-based, Santander-owned brokerage Amherst Pierpont, which the media outlet noted has “pointed out inconsistencies in Bukele’s economic policies and his decisions on Bitcoin bonds.”
The broker was quoted as stating:
“The formal announcement of a BTC-related USD bond issuage informally confirms a break with the IMF, along with an uncertain alternative financing/growth model.”
Amherst Pierpont added that initial market reaction has been “skeptical of increased borrowing, the lack of conditionality for a coherent economic framework and latent skepticism on the matter of whether bitcoin represents a positive alternative for growth.”
Rommel Rodríguez, a researcher from El Salvador’s National Development Foundation (Funde)’s Macroeconomics and Development unit, concurred. Rodríguez was quoted as opining that the 2022 budget plan, as outlined by the government finance chief Alejandro Zelaya, seemed somewhat “optimistic.”
Rodríguez questioned whether “projected revenues” could “coincide with the expected growth rate” – although he conceded that the “projections” had been “made with a lower growth rate” in mind.
Bukele appears to be hoping that an alternative economy will arise organically at the BTC bond-powered “Bitcoin City” settlement to be built at the foot of one of the Latin American nation’s volcanoes. He has promised potential entrepreneurial residents fast-tracked residency permits, as well as virtually no taxes – barring a single VAT charge on sales.
But there could be more trouble ahead for the BTC-keen Bukele. The same media outlet also reported that the state-run Chivo wallet’s sales volumes currently “do not even account for 1{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} of the trade done by SMEs [small or medium-sized enterprises].”
It quoted the Society of Merchants and Industrialists of El Salvador’s Advisor Ramón Rivera, as stating that companies “continue to make transactions in dollars, despite the fact that the government has insisted they use the Chivo mobile application, with which bitcoin can be used as legal tender.”
The same group’s President, Luis Chevez, was quoted as stating:
“In our sector, [bitcoin adoption] has not materialized. People have not been going out of their way to use bitcoin. People work with the US dollar and we do not [see] the impact that bitcoin could have on the economy.”
Last month, the IMF warned El Salvador about the need to address risks related to using bitcoin as legal tender, as well as its “new payments ecosystem” and bitcoin trading. ____ Learn more: – El Salvador’s Bitcoin City, BTC Bonds Plans Met With Mixed Reaction – El Salvador Buys Bitcoin Dip Again
– Corporations & Countries Watch and Learn From El Salvador’s Bitcoin Experiment – El Salvador Bitcoin ‘Scalpers’ Force App Turnaround as Chivo Criticism Continues
By DAVID KOENIG and YURI KAGEYAMA, Associated Press
Tourism businesses that were just finding their footing after nearly two years of devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic are being rattled again as countries throw up new barriers to travel in an effort to contain the omicron variant.
From shopping districts in Japan and tour guides in the Holy Land to ski resorts in the Alps and airlines the world over, a familiar dread is rising about the renewed restrictions.
Meanwhile, travelers eager to get out there have been thrown back into the old routine of reading up on new requirements and postponing trips.
Abby Moore, a librarian and associate professor at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, was scheduled to leave for Prague on Wednesday. But the day before her flight, she started having doubts when she saw that Prague had closed its Christmas markets and imposed a city-wide curfew.
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“I wasn’t really concerned about my trip until the Czech Republic started what looked like a mini-lockdown process,” said Moore, who decided to reschedule her travel to March.
Less than a month after significantly easing restrictions for inbound international travel, the U.S. government has banned most foreign nationals who have recently been in any of eight southern African countries. A similar boomerang was seen in Japan and Israel, both of which tightened restrictions shortly after relaxing them.
While it is not clear where the variant emerged, South African scientists identified it last week, and many places have restricted travel from the wider region, including the European Union and Canada.
For all the alarm, little is known about omicron, including whether it is more contagious, causes more serious illness or can evade vaccines.
Still, governments that were slow to react to the first wave of COVID-19 are eager to avoid past mistakes. The World Health Organization says, however, that travel bans are of limited value and will “place a heavy burden on lives and livelihoods.” Other experts say travel restrictions won’t keep variants out but might give countries more time to get people vaccinated.
London-based airline easyJet said Tuesday that renewed travel restrictions already appear to be hurting winter bookings, although CEO Johan Lundgren said the damage is not yet as severe as during previous waves. The CEO of SAS Scandinavian Airlines said winter demand was looking up, but now we “need to figure out what the new variants may mean.”
“In the past year, each new variant has brought a decline in bookings, but then an increase once the surge dissipates,” said Helane Becker, an analyst with financial services firm Cowen. “We expect the same pattern” this time.
Israel’s decision to close the country to foreign visitors is hitting the nation’s tourism industry as it geared up for the Hanukkah and Christmas holidays. The country only opened to tourists in November, after barring most foreign visitors since early last year.
Just over 30,000 tourists entered Israel in the first half of November, compared to 421,000 in November 2019, according to government figures.
Joel Haber, a Jerusalem-based guide, said during a typical Hanukkah holiday his calendar would be chock full of food tours through Jerusalem’s colorful Mahane Yehuda market. Instead, he has just one tour a day.
“Tour operators like me are the first to get hit and the last to emerge and are directly prevented from working by a government decision,” Haber said.
In the West Bank city of Bethlehem, revered by Christians as Jesus’ birthplace, local businesses expected a boost from Christmas tourism. The Bethlehem Hotel, one of the largest in the city, has operated at a fraction of capacity for the past 18 months.
“Everyone who had bookings over the next two weeks has canceled, while others are waiting to see what happens next,” said the hotel’s manager, Michael Mufdi. “I don’t know how much longer we can last, but we are doing our best.”
The pandemic already caused foreign tourism in Japan to shrink from 32 million visitors in 2019 to 4 million last year, a trend that has continued through this year.
As worries surfaced about omicron, Japan on Wednesday tightened its ban on foreign travelers, asking airlines to stop taking new reservations for all flights arriving in the country until the end of December. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has pushed for avoiding “the worst-case scenario” and reversed a relaxation of travel restrictions that had been in effect just three weeks.
The crowds of Chinese shoppers who used to arrive in Tokyo’s glitzy Ginza district in a stream of buses to snap up luxury items have long disappeared. Restaurants and bars have been forced to restrict hours.
In Asakusa, a quaint part of town filled with souvenir shops, rickshaw drivers, and stalls selling traditional sweets, news of the omicron variant made little difference this week. Vendors say there hasn’t been any business for months except for a few local customers.
Boat charter operator Tokyo Water Taxi started on the city’s waterfront in 2015, when hopes were high for cashing in on the booming tourism trade. With the variant pushing the return of foreign visitors far into the future, the company is trying to look on the bright side.
“It’s growing popular with Tokyo residents, who have lost other ways to entertain themselves,” said company spokeswoman Yuha Inoue.
In Europe, Alpine ski resorts worry about how to keep up with requirements such as ensuring all skiers are vaccinated or recovered from infection and have tested negative for the virus.
Matthias Stauch, head of the German ski lift operators association VDS, said many are small family businesses that lack the staff to perform such checks. Meanwhile, the association is warning about “massive” economic damage to the tourism sector if there is another lockdown.
Travel executives argue that government decisions about restrictions should wait until more is known about omicron, but they admit it’s a difficult call.
“If you wait, by the time you have all the data it’s probably too late to stop community spread because (the virus) is already here,” said Robert Jordan, the incoming CEO at Southwest Airlines. “If you jump ahead, you run the risk of the measures being more impactful than the actual cases.”
About a month ago, Javier Barragan and his husband booked a visit to Paris for later this month. When news of omicron hit, they were concerned but decided to go ahead with the trip.
“The way that it was in the news, there’s a sense of ‘Oh, is this worse? Is this different?’” said Barragan, who lives in New York. France’s health protocols — the couple will have to submit vaccine cards to enter the country — made them feel more comfortable. Also, both got booster shots.
They did, however, buy travel insurance that will cover cancellation for most any reason.
Koenig reported from Dallas and Kageyama from Tokyo. Associated Press writers Mae Anderson and Tali Arbel in New York; Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit; Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel; Jack Jeffery in Bethlehem, West Bank; Frank Jordans in Berlin; Pan Pylas in London; and Mogomotsi Magome in Johannesburg contributed.
Follow AP’s coverage of the coronavirus pandemic at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic
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