Everybody in tech knows that the best time to update, change, improve any application of any kind is when the users are at low numbers. The travel and hospitality tech industry is on the verge of a large reinvention and acceleration, because the game changed and we look at a period of time with many changes ahead of us.
This blog post is the second part of the article Claudiu Mailat, business group manager in the Software Services Division @AROBS, published earlier on his Linkedin profile. Please read it beforehand.
The pessimistic data are coming from the World Tourism Organisation, IATA and many others. IATA declares that no longer expects a “V-shaped” recovery for the airline industry as the effect of COVID-19 pandemics continue to spread. Brian Pearce, the chief economist of the industry group IATA, estimates the carriers will lose about $252 billion in revenues this year and that without government help, several “might not be able to last” until next year.
In the USA, by April, the airlines had already drastically cut their fleets and airlines will tread with extreme caution in putting planes back in service, unless they are sure passengers will fill them. Most analysts believe the industry’s recovery could take at least until 2022.
European governments have rushed to rescue flagship airlines, with Germany offering loans to Lufthansa, and Italy’s government taking control of Alitalia. Even the most glittering heavy hitters will not escape the pain. “We will be permanently affected, with questions about changes in travellers’ behaviour,” Air France CEO Anne Rigail said recently.
What about corporate travel? So long as there is some risk to travellers, companies might hesitate to dispatch their employees, especially while trying to cut costs in a recession.
European Union Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton has claimed that the pandemic is costing Europe 1bn every month, while the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) estimates that worldwide tourist arrivals could fall by as much as 30% in 2020.
Some important information sources, like The Economist, are talking about deglobalization.
Travel industry without globalization sounds kind of restrictive.
Is there any hope at all for the travel technology? Will we travel and vacationing again? Will we just be staycationing?
Jeremy Gutsche, of TrendHunter.com, published on Forbes a very interesting opinion: Post COVID-19 people will want to live their bucket lists as much as possible, supercharged tourism (Exoticism in travel that ensures more through escape from reality) will boom. We may even mix in a sense of gratitude and add volunteerism on these vacations.
Another optimistic view, by Jennifer Leigh Parker, also published by Forbes, says that private vacation rental companies stand to benefit in a post-COVID world, compared to large chain hotels with hundreds of rooms and shared communal spaces built to encourage large gatherings. Of course, consumers will re-enter the travel market with lots of caution and social distancing habits. At least, this is the argument Airbnb is making to investors. Coronavirus might be the best thing (or the worst thing, depending on your perspective) that ever happened to the cruise business, which has, for decades, skirted the labour laws and environmental regulations that typically apply to income tax-paying industries. The cruise business will not sink.
The time for acceleration and reinvention in travel technology – any OTA software, any type of property management system, – is right now. Our teams, at AROBS, will work on any solutions, we have the talent, the expertise, and the resilience to create improved versions of any travel technology app, you name it, from OTA software to property management system apps, ready to be used in the era of the new normal.
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