CTA Silent on How New Global Travel Curbs Might Impact CES Attendance

CTA representatives didn’t respond to questions about how they think the Biden administration’s tightened restrictions on overseas travelers to the U.S. designed to thwart the spread of COVID-19's omicron variant might affect international participation at CES 2022. The U.S. will require all inbound international travelers to test negative for COVID-19 within one day of departure globally, “regardless of nationality or vaccination status,” said the White House Thursday. The previous requirement was for a negative test result within three days of departure for the U.S. “This tighter testing timeline provides an added degree of public health protection,” as scientists continue to assess the omicron variant, it said. CTA executives at recent media briefings emphasized international CES 2022 participation, especially after the U.S. reopened its borders to fully vaccinated travelers Nov. 8, about two weeks before South African epidemiologists discovered the emergence of the new variant. “Tens of thousands” were registered for CES 2022, “30% of them international,” Karen Chupka, CTA executive vice president-CES, told a Nov. 18 media briefing. Most of the international registrants were from Canada, Mexico, Europe, Japan and South Korea, she said. The show’s Eureka Park pavilion of tech startups will have representation from “nearly every region of the world,” said CTA President Gary Shapiro at the same briefing. The pavilion will feature 100 startups from the Netherlands, and the Italian delegation will be up 40% from the 2020 show, he said then.