In a normal year, I would have slept through most of this weekend, after flying home from Las Vegas on Friday night as Virtuoso Travel Week normally wraps up. This year, I only had to walk from my office to the living room, so the journey wasn’t quite as exhausting.
There is no doubt that attending this event, and connecting with all our contacts via video-conferencing was not as good as being there in person, but we all really did try to make the best of the situation, and I do feel that I learned as much as I have in other years, definitely making it a worthwhile effort.
I thought some of the trends being discussed at Virtuoso Travel Week might be of interest to our readers, so here’s summary of a week’s worth of meetings:
When can we travel again?
- There are lots of opinions on this, and only those possessing a time-machine know for sure, but consensus is that travel will start to ramp back up later this year, and through the first half of next year.
- Vaccines are at the center of a recovery, and it is hoped they will be available by the end of the year. The other pillars of a return to normalcy are rapid (and accurate) testing, treatment options and contact tracing. These tools to combat the virus may be available before a proven vaccine.
- Gloria Guevera, the President of the WTTC (World Travel & Tourism Council) addressed us and spoke optimistically about the things we can learn from those countries that have had the best outcomes to date in managing covid.
Where are People Most Interested in Going Next?
- There are some interesting data points here that I am still digesting. As you would expect, people are planning domestic travel, but the top-five destinations are not quite the same as they were pre-covid. They are: California, Hawaii, Alaska, Washington and Montana. Nobody could tell me why, but I’m guessing there is a strong focus on National Parks that is driving this.
- For cruising, there is a parallel trend: Alaska and Canada/New England are selling very briskly for 2021 right now. We are also seeing strong interest in the Rocky Mountaineer Luxury Train Trip (also in Canada).
- Internationally, there are also some new trends. South Africa has overtaken Italy as the place most people are booking to. Italy fell to second place followed by Australia, France, and Japan.
- For cruising, we are seeing European River Cruises continuing to be very popular for next year, as well as Egypt (Nile River) and Southern Africa (Zambezi River).
How will it be different?
- Even if we get a vaccine, and other countermeasures in place in short order, it will still take some time to get them fully deployed, so we can count on some differences in the way we travel. Some changes may remain permanent. For example…
- Muster Drills: For the cruise ships that have returned to service in Europe, they are doing the safety chat on TV, and then asking people to report to their muster stations within a specific time period. This practice may outlive the pandemic.
- Cruise sales overall are down 6% for 2021 over where they would normally be this many months in advance. However, small-ship ocean cruises, and river cruises are MORE fully booked out than they would normally be for 2021. Part of this is undoubtedly due to rebooking of 2020 cancelled cruises, but there is another trend at work here too. It seems that people aren’t all the worried about catching covid. Their fear is getting stuck on a ship somewhere with no way to get ashore to get home. This doesn’t happen on river ships and is much less likely on a small ocean vessel.
- Masks will be part of our reality when we fly for some time yet.
- Buffets on board ships are not available now, and there is some question as to whether they’ll return or not. Buffets are not really consistent with a luxury experience, so while they may eventually return to the mega-ships, it is an open question as to whether river ships and small ocean vessels will return to buffets once all this nonsense is over.
- Reduced capacity on both ships and in hotels until further notice.
- Bubble-Travel. This is a trend we’re seeing amongst land-tour operators. Extended families or groups of two or three families are getting their very own group when doing land tours. These groups are normally 8 – 12 people, and some land tour operators are making this a very attractive way to get out there again while minimizing the risk. I’ll write more about this next week.
Finally, Gloria Guevara (President, WTTC) reinforced for us the importance of the tourism industry both in the United States and abroad. Travel and tourism is responsible for about 1 in 10 jobs globally, so the spin-off effects of having shut the industry down are devastating. Some governments around the world have recognized this fact, and attempted to put mitigating factors in place, but there is no doubt there are a lot of people hurting both at home and in those countries we like to visit.
Over-tourism (a very real problem) has given way to under-tourism this year, as the whole industry has simply ground to a halt. Hopefully, as we emerge from the pandemic we can return to travel in a thoughtful and sustainable way.
For me… I’m looking forward to being back in Vegas in person next August to take in Virtuoso Travel Week 2021 (and the floral scents of the Bellagio!)
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I look forward to hearing from you.
Sue Bradley
Sue Bradley
