This is how the journey will change after the Covid-19 pandemic recedes

The coronavirus has devastated economies around the world and has disrupted life in unimaginable ways just a few months ago. The world will never be the same. But at some point, industries will start to come back online and people will start dating again.

We asked travel industry experts for their opinions on what will restore people’s confidence to start traveling once the Covid-19 pandemic finally recedes. In the last installment of our series “The next normal“We look at where and how we will travel once we are ready to hit the road again.

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A road trip to a national park or other attraction in a neighboring state.

A week’s stay at a nearby disinfected vacation rental property.

How does that sound? Your next departure can be booked through a travel advisor and also insured.

This is what typical family vacations are like in the United States once travel and tourism begin to recover after the pandemic, industry experts say. Just when that could happen is in the air, however it could be as early as fall or as late as next spring or more.

The hypothetical trip incorporates various trends that will hit the travel business in the future. These include traveler preferences for car-accessible domestic destinations and stays at private rental properties rather than crowded hotels and resorts.

What seems certain is that any recovery in travel and tourism, halted by the coronavirus pandemic, will start slowly and stay closer to home. A recent Longwoods International study found that 82% of travelers surveyed had changed their travel plans for the next six months.

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“The tourism recovery generally begins locally,” said Elizabeth Monahan, a spokeswoman for TripAdvisor.com. “Travelers tend to venture closer to home first, and visit their local restaurants, stay locally for a weekend getaway, or travel in the country before strong demand for international travel returns.”

Omer Rabin, managing director of America for Guesty, an Israeli firm that develops property management software for companies like Airbnb and HomeStay, agreed. “There will be a lot of demand for domestic travel,” he said. “I think it is clear to everyone in the industry right now.

“We see much better recovery and occupancy for car destinations,” he added. “People say, ‘We don’t know what will happen to the flights, but we do know that we can get in the car and drive for three hours and have our own place and stay there for two weeks.’ ””

In fact, the Longwoods survey found that of those who had changed their travel plans for this year, nearly a quarter, or 22%, had switched to driving from flying. Aviation industry group Airlines for America says US airlines have idled 3,000 planes, or half of the nation’s fleet, due to the recession, while the number of passengers passing through checkpoints in TSA at airports has decreased 93% over the past year.

“Our customers are a little hesitant to get on a plane right now,” said Jessica Griscavage, director of marketing for McCabe World Travel in McLean, Virginia. “We are already preparing for the unit market for the rest of the year, and probably 2021.”

For its part, the online travel insurance comparison site InsureMyTrip is discovering that the US USA Continental is indeed the main draw for future customer trips, but it is also tracking some interest in domestic destinations like Hawaii, as well as the Bahamas and the Caribbean like Jamaica.

“As people become more comfortable, they will continue to move further and further from home, starting with the domestic and then moving to the international over the long term,” said Cheryl Golden, director of e-commerce in Warwick, Rhode Island. company based. (Sandals Resorts will reportedly open most of its Sandals and Beaches properties throughout the Caribbean on June 4 and the Bahamas on July 1).

There is a small degree of interest in flying from staunch bargain hunters.

“We have heard from several travelers that the low airfares available on many routes are tempting,” said Monahan of TripAdvisor, although she cautioned those willing to book flights that “airlines continue to adjust their cancellation and exchange policies for travelers from all over the world”. in response to Covid-19 “.

“Every day and every week, it seems like things are changing and it’s really dynamic,” Golden said. “It is difficult for us to say at this time when we believe that people will be ready to travel, but the journey will return.”

Erika Richter, senior director of communications for the American Society of Travel Advisors, said a new normal is likely to be necessary before bookings increase again. “We are still in wait and see mode, because until the virus is under control and efficient systems are in place to restore confidence in travel, it is simply too early to know when people can expect to start booking again. “

And when they do, things will be different, thinks Anne Scully, certified travel advisor and president of McCabe World Travel. “The journey will return [but] we would need a crystal ball to say when, “he said.” It will be changed, I think, for at least the next 12 months. “

Meanwhile, Scully’s colleague Griscavage said he saw a “stalemate” in the agency’s bookings over the holiday season, which means little to new business, but also not many cancellations. “Those [trips] they are still bought, they are not canceled yet, although it is too early to know, “he said. I personally am not seeing an increase in [holiday] travel reservations still, although I think that can change very quickly as states start to open. “

However, there has been good news at Guesty, Rabin said. In the last two weeks of April, more bookings came than cancellations.

“The most interesting thing is that there are more future bookings for vacations right now than we saw at the time in April 2019 for last year’s holiday season,” said Rabin. “Which means there is a lot of optimism and people are planning ahead.”

Bookings for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year stays increased 38%, 40%, and 23%, respectively, compared to the same time in 2019, Guesty discovered. “This also means that many people are unable to take summer vacations or are not comfortable making reservations and travel plans for June, July and August,” Rabin said, so they are planning for later in the year. The new flexibility in vacation rental cancellation policies is also helping, he added.

“The journey has changed,” said Scully on McCabe World Travel. “It changed after September 11, and it changed after the economy exploded in 2008-09.” However, travel advisers showed clients that travel was still possible despite economic or geopolitical changes, and perhaps “better than ever,” he said.

Griscavage said he anticipates a large increase in multi-generational and family travel once people are willing to book travel again. “They did not have their spring break, they are not sure of their summer trips,” he said. “Maybe you couldn’t go to Mom and Dad’s 50th anniversary or Grandma’s 80th birthday.

“All these families have not been able to be together,” he added. “I think we will see a lot of family and multi-gender trips, but in a different way, in a safer way.”

How is that? Accommodations perceived to be cleaner and more isolated will find greater favor. “The question on every traveler’s mind will be ‘what are the resorts doing to make us feel safe?'” Griscavage said. “I think we are going to see a huge increase [in bookings of] villas and private houses and less crowded experiences “.

Scully suggested that traditional hotel properties can pivot to function more like private villas, selling full flats with staff “not so much with a butler but with a controller who could go to the pool, for example, and make sure the pool chairs are the room are separated. ” Hotel rooms can also remain empty for several days and be fully disinfected before a new guest can check in.

“These will be not only changes in the game, but perhaps a healthier way to move forward,” Scully reflected. “You have probably seen ridiculous TV shows asking ‘Is the hotel bedspread really clean?’ Well now I bet it’s really going to be flawless. “

Rabin agreed that disinfection will be “something very important.” Many of Guesty’s vacation home hosts are installing automatic locks that can be opened through the cell phone app, arranging contactless food deliveries to guest units, and spacing rental periods, “sometimes by days, “to ensure complete disinfection of the unit, he said.

There is a definite move toward vacation homes over hotels, Rabin said. “People are much more comfortable staying in short-term rentals like vacation homes,” he said. “Hotels have a high turnover of guests, a high volume, a lot of people at check-in and check-out and in the dining room.”

The trend even influences how hosts market their rental units. “If you search for apartments on Airbnb today, you will see that many of the hosts will name the property – ‘Sanitized, highly clean, Covid-friendly’ – a lot of things like that basically to point out to their clients, ‘We are a safe place ‘”.

It works: Those hosts are seeing more bookings, according to Guesty’s data. The firm is working to ensure that all hosts can offer contactless and cleaner stays to prospective guests, Rabin said.

InsureMyTrip, meanwhile, is seeing a 6% increase in vacation rental for vacation units during 2019, along with a decrease in hotel bookings, Golden said. “It is a trend that is beginning to happen, but I hope that we will start to see more of this as people look to travel closer to home for vacation.”

Other areas of travel and tourism, from pricing and flexibility to insurance and booking methods, are also evolving:

Flexibility: Once you have paid, you are now, in many cases, free to cancel flights, accommodation and other travel components almost until the last minute. “All providers really need the revenue stream, so they offer this kind of flexibility right now,” said Rabin. “The greater chance that they will have to recoup many of the losses for a weak summer is in a strong winter,” so they are doing everything possible to encourage reserves.

Scully at McCabe World Travel would like to see another change when it comes to prepaid. “When we give money to a hotel, a tour operator or a cruise line, those funds for that customer must be kept in a kind of deposit,” he said. “They can’t use it for marketing or anything else, so when something happens, they have to give customers back the money they paid in good faith.”

Prices: Fall travel costs have not come down much. “Most sellers really understand that their path to profitability and recovery in 2020 is trying to protect their prices in the winter season,” said Rabin. “And then we see that most of them, for very obvious reasons, want to sacrifice flexibility and not margin.”

Duration: Rabin said that short-term accommodation rentals, once typically 3.5 to 5 days, have a longer duration, with an average stay of 8.5 to 9 days. The trend was repeated a few weeks ago when urbanites reserved month-long escapes from city centers that increased the average length of stay “but now we see it as something that is really a sustainable trend, over the past month or so “

Trip types: In addition to road trips near home, people seem willing to consider booking vacations that typically require a year or more of advanced planning, Richter of ASTA said. “While some travelers are booking for 2021, it will really depend on the traveler and where they are going,” he said.

African safaris, for example, require a year or more before booking, especially at popular times of the year. “Those are the types of planning discussions that travel consultants have with some of their clients,” he said. “You should also think about all the destination weddings and honeymoons that were put on hold and need to readjust, and then maybe readjust again and again.”

Travel insurance: Travel insurance, once an afterthought rejected by travelers looking for a bargain, may see a rebound. “Now more people than ever know about travel insurance and how it could help them,” Golden said on InsureMyTrip.com. “Every time we’ve had an event like this in the past, there has been an increase in travel insurance that remains.”

Before September 11, approximately 7% of people bought travel insurance; After an increase in sales after the attack, the figure reached around 15%, he said. “We hope for a similar increase after the coronavirus,” Golden said. “Now it has shot up dramatically.” According to the company, between 25 and 30% of travelers will buy travel insurance in the future.

Consultant Scully has sold many travel insurances in recent times, especially the comprehensive type. “We update our insurance clients to ‘cancel for any reason,'” he said, noting that he also offers clients medical evacuation services. “Every time we take a client’s money and they say, ‘I’m not going to insure this,’ the first thing I will say is, ‘Do you feel comfortable losing $ 25,000 if you can’t travel?’

Travel advisers: The rise of online booking engines and online travel agencies from the mid-1990s hit the traditional travel agent industry hard. But the trouble many travelers have had to reimburse or reschedule their reserved plans in the midst of the pandemic may fuel a rebirth in the lot of agents, who have now been renamed “travel advisers.”

“If anyone booked without a travel advisor during this period, they found out they should have,” said Scully at McCabe World Travel. “Even trying to call the airlines, because the phones were so crowded, it could take 16 hours, it could take two to three days.”

It’s not just consumers who notice. “Our partners, our hotel partners, our cruise partners, our airline partners, our shore partners, everyone knows how to move forward, how valuable that travel advisor will be for your future growth,” said Scully.

“The role of the travel advisor has evolved a lot and we are no longer just transactional agents,” said Richter of ASTA, whose thousands of members represent 80% of all travel sold in the United States through the travel adviser distribution channel travels. “We firmly believe that the future will have a strong emphasis on the travel advisor facilitating the future of travel.”

She favorably compared the roles that counselors can play in both travel and personal finance. “During this crisis, people who are concerned about their 401 (k) savings and investments are talking to their financial advisers, [who] they are helping them to reevaluate and make short and long-term adjustments to their financial portfolio, “Richter said.” The same is true for smart travelers.

“They are working with their travel advisor to adjust their short and long term travel goals, and it is an ongoing relationship.”