By Netpal Travel Bureau
The profile of travel demand has changed fundamentally. Handling ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic for so long, the importance of travel spectrum have altered for both leisure and business travellers.
The companies across the world have realized that their business can carry on distantly. There is no need to travel and stay overnight for a one-o-one meeting, hence business travel will apparently be much lower. With dramatic significances for aviation and hospitality industries, the travel market is now, in effect, a leisure market. All the travel companies need to initiate a new strategy for overall leisure travel to gel with the post-pandemic market.
The travel industry will not look the same again. Domestic travel will be the preference for leisure travelers. Travelers in the post-COVID era will look for sustainable experiences that can merge with their own need for wellness and that of the planet.
In a post-pandemic market, travel companies need to generate and gain demand for leisure travel. The travel industry will be characterized by a new kind of travel customer whose expectations and preferences will drive demand.
This structural shift changes how those companies need to go about attracting, converting and retaining customers. It also means they need to think creatively about what to do with underutilized assets
Many corporate executives had all their meetings online in 2020. In 2021, we believe that will change soon due to the pace of vaccines, decline of COVID-19 cases and negative impacts of closed economies.
Regional sales trips are beginning again and airport executives suggest that business travelers are coming back. But when will this segment really return? Hoping by Q4 2021. Q2 will see an uptick, Q3 will be all about pent-up leisure demand and Q4 will see a strong return of business travel.
The companies have been able to conduct business online with improved online meeting technology however, not to think these meetings will continue online much longer. Hybrid meetings will reduce the amount of corporate hotel use which may be a lasting factor.
Event sponsors do not want to pay to be part of an online event. There might be a different approach to attendee participation and the serving of food and beverage and person-to-person interactions will come back beginning in Q4 and will grow fast in 2022.