IN December 2020, international arrivals were down 74% from a year prior. The World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) predicted the pandemic would set international travel back to the levels of 30 years ago. On the day of WiT’s second travel roadshow Singapore experienced 16 locally transmitted Covid-19 cases. The following day, India would set a global record of 400,000 daily infections.
With such jaw-dropping infection figures a daily occurrence it is equally astonishing to find that a great deal of optimism still exists in travel, and yet it does.
A combination of domestic demand that never completely dried-up, and the potential opportunities post-Covid, has people in the industry feeling positive that travel will not only survive, but thrive in an AC (After Covid) world.
Rohit Kapoor, CEO for India & Southeast Asia (INSEA), OYO, credits its deep localisation for some of this, saying “In most markets, we are a very local player. So for example even in the major markets in INSEA (India, Indonesia, Malaysia) 90% plus of our demand is local. So to that extent, lack of international travel did not impact us so much.” Though he does acknowledge that local demand was impacted by the pandemic.
Not only did local demand for travel shrink during the pandemic, Traveloka’s senior VP of Accommodation, Nelly Nurmalasari describes how customer preferences also evolved over the period. Beyond typical staycations (at clean/safe certified hotels), travellers were looking for outdoorsy experiences that brought them closer to nature and afforded them more privacy. In turn this prompted Traveloka to explore expanding its supplier base to offer more of such private properties.
But expanding or evolving supply is not always straightforward. While expanding their offerings, travel platforms must ensure suppliers meet their quality and brand promises for an audience long reputed to be harder to please – domestic travellers.
Weichun Liu, co-founder and executive vice president at KKday, sees both challenge and opportunity there, sharing “Domestic travellers are definitely tougher than tourists, they know the local language and [are] more knowledgeable about the destination than tourists. The first thing we did was revisit our product portfolio, and realise there was a need to expand, to tier two cities, to the places that we didn’t visit before. We acquired a new set of suppliers, and then realised there were lots of things to do especially on the technology side.”
Education was also crucial especially during the pandemic when suppliers had to manage cancellations and allotment while Covid policy changed, often on a daily basis.
Liu’s optimism stems from the resilient demand for travel that still exists, continuing, “if you have done all that, the customer will come.”
Indeed, it is their relationships with domestic travellers that travel platforms have relied on, deepening customer relationships to understand the shifts in demand so that service providers can better address them.
“When there’s a storm at sea, the best fishermen repair their nets”, notes Kapoor, something which OYO has been doing, having built more products and technology during the pandemic than in the preceding four years in total. Travel platforms have spent this time improving backend infrastructure, moving into new verticals, and perhaps most importantly, listening to customers.
This has been crucial DC (During Covid) and will likely remain so AC. Attentiveness to shifting consumer demand shines a spotlight on unexpected ways to meet it. KKday has had to reconceive staycations, for example, expanding their target customer from millennials and couples previously, to families, realising that huge demand exists in this category which needs something to do each weekend. The realisation gave rise to the Tsum Tsum Pyjama Party recently held at Fairmont Singapore.
Consumer concerns can even be addressed operationally. OYO’s Kapoor reflects on the revelation that while in a pre-Covid universe, watching hotel staff do a room turnover would have been considered a service gap, DC guests expressed a preference for hotels to “please clean the room in front of my eyes.”
This spotlight can also illuminate the path forward, as travel platforms turn their eyes towards recovery. Catherine So, managing director of Asia Pacific for the Expedia Group shares that customer relationships remained strong, and that people who booked outbound travel with Expedia pre-Covid, continued to book with Expedia to travel domestically.
As for adapting to the AC environment, So understands that “more than ever, [customers want to] book with someone who can help them through the complexity of travels, and to take away the uncertainties where possible.” A promise Expedia is taking seriously with the relaunch of the Expedia brand to position themselves as a platform who will be with travellers from start to finish “support[ing] them through the entire travel [process] with confidence, so they can enjoy the travel.”
One thing travel insiders agree on is that demand is sure to return, and that the shakeout of organisations during the pandemic will create gaps and opportunities for existing players.
KKday is not ruling out acquiring physical tour operator in future expansion, while OYO believes it is well positioned to weather this storm and recover strong when demand picks up. Meanwhile brands like Traveloka and Expedia are responding to consumer demand to provide a more rounded out, supported travel experience.
If travel operators can indeed weather this storm, and take the time to repair their nets, then perhaps whether the future of travel is global or local, there is a reason for optimism.
• Featured image credit: IB_photo/Getty Images.