Utah tourism officials to launch initiatives educating people how to travel safely

SALT LAKE CITY – As more people get the COVID-19 vaccine, some doctors say those who are vaccinated should have more access to domestic travel.  The Utah State Office of Tourism is hoping to teach people how to travel, responsibly, as the viral spread continues to go down. 

According to news outlets like Business Insider, a growing number of doctors believe it’s safe for fully vaccinated people to travel domestically, even though the CDC says there aren’t enough vaccinated people in the U.S. to make nationwide travel safe.

Officials with the Utah Office of Tourism said they would never recommend people go against CDC guidelines.  At the same time, they hope to show people that there are safe ways to visit the Beehive State.  So, they’ll be launching their “Forever Mighty” education initiative, which will teach people how to travel safely and ethically if they plan to visit the state.

Tourism Managing Director Vicki Varela said, “It involves everything from good environmental stewardship to, obviously, continuing to respect other people through COVID.”

Varela said people will be seeing a lot of this campaign over the next few months.

“The goal there is to help people understand the responsible ways that they can travel,” Varela said.

Along with that, Varela said her office will be kicking off their “Tread Lightly” program, which is targeted at people who use off-highway vehicles in Utah.

She said, “We want to make sure that people know the ways to do that, responsibly.”

These campaigns aren’t as large as previous ones have been, however, Varela said they could get bigger as long as people continue to get their vaccines.

“We’re doing a modest amount of marketing now, and as the COVID problem declines, our marketing will increase,” she said.