Can the Cosmopolitan Globetrotter, as a Concept, Survive COVID-19?

COVID-19 has been a difficult time for those who love to travel. As countries enforce lockdown to minimize the risks of citizens contracting the disease from one another, shutting national borders has been a standard procedure. Airports emptied out as airlines canceled flights, and even among supposed visa-free travel zones like the EU, internal checks on supposedly non-existent national border controls have made it difficult for citizens to exercise their right to move, live, and work anywhere within the zone. While the talks of regional "travel bubbles" abound among countries that seem to have suppressed the epidemic, the return of unhindered travel around the world remains far away.

The economic damage of restrictions on the movement of people across the border is obvious. Those who rely on people moving to make a living, including airlines, hotels, and millions employed by the tourism industry around the world, directly suffer from the lack of visitors and business travelers from other countries. But beyond the direct hits to travel and hospitality, blanket international travel bans also bring indirect damages to other industries that may not directly rely on foreigners' money. Even firms that service what are largely domestic markets, ranging from convenience stores to advertising agencies, employ legions of foreign employees and executives that form important, if largely not publicized, cogs in the corporate machine.

Yet, while the economic damage of restricted movements is immediate and commonly felt in the short term, in the long-term, the psychological damage that comes from people not being able to easily cross borders can be even more severe. Globalization is more than just allowing firms to extend their supply chains and markets around the world. It is also an exercise in the sharing of ideas and worldviews that come from integrating practices and norms from different corners of the world. By bringing ideas from different countries together, new products and services can be created to further improve the livelihoods of people everywhere.

That sharing of ideas is what allowed the creation of what some would term a "cosmopolitan elite," a group of globetrotters who are not only everywhere in their footprint, and encompasses everywhere in their very minds. By eschewing personal identification with any one particular nationality or culture, the members of the cosmopolitan elite serve as a bulwark against sometimes rabid and irrational nationalism put forth by those who seek to use the idea of fundamental difference across nations to prevent further encroachment of globalization, at least at a personal level, upon an isolationist definition of national sovereignty.

Yet, for the cosmopolitan elite to serve, the ability to move across borders is indispensable. The fluid worldview of its members is formulated through personal experiences living in multiple countries and interacting with locals in multiple places. For the cosmopolitans to remain cosmopolitan, and for more people to join their ranks require their being able to continue going to new places and interacting with people there, with little restrictions to hold them back. The travel bans instigated by governments amid the coronavirus epidemic seek to put an end to the very possibility of there being cosmopolitan globetrotters.

It is all the more unfortunate that the cosmopolitans cannot be themselves now, because it is now that their guild worldview and tolerance of different cultures are particularly needed. The willingness of governments around the world to instinctively close borders reflects a fundamental lack of trust that people and governments of other countries are as capable as their own in containing the disease. Many online comments have put forth hypotheses that some countries are weathering the epidemic with fewer fatalities because of their people being more culturally or even genetically suited for warding off the virus.

Indeed, without the cosmopolitan elite that speaks for the necessity of continued cross-border movements, nationalists may easily leverage the dangers of renewed infections as COVID-19 mutates, or other strains of viruses emerge, to permanently make national economies and communities more insular. As the disruptions caused by COVID-19 has proven the wisdom of keeping the production of vital supplies close to home rather than depend upon fickle global supply chains, governments can find support for self-reliance and isolationism among those who had previously called for more global integration of both the economic and cultural sort.

Yet, reviving global travel will not be easy under the current situation. Governments and peoples around the world continue to blame foreigners for the virus, with racism and xenophobia becoming more visible due to COVID-19. The case against globetrotters is as valid as it has ever been since the term was conceived. Those who love to travel cannot simply wish away the travel bans now. But at the very least, they can keep up the narrative that closed borders today are only temporary and in the long term, the world simply cannot do without open borders. An argument, based on the irreversibility of globalization, hinged upon people flowing relatively freely across borders, goes a long way to ensure overt nationalism does not take hold in the era of COVID-19.