The pandemic has clearly changed the world. Today, we will share some factors that business leaders should keep in mind as they pivot to a new sense of normalcy and consider the return of corporate travel.
Since March of 2020, business leaders have scrambled to adapt to some extraordinary circumstances in the areas of HR Management, Customer Service, Product Delivery, Client Retention and Communications. Entering 2021 has not stopped the pandemic. Yet, we have hope on the horizon as the distribution channels for the vaccine continue to improve with places such as Dodger Stadium and Disneyland being designated as Super Vaccine sites. These sites are able to vaccinate thousands of people each day. This provides a faint light at the end of what has been a very dark tunnel.
2021 will continue to be a year of transition. It is probably safe to say that we can look forward to shaping our future based on the lessons we have learned over the past year.
While the light at the end of the tunnel is faint, it is the beginning of a much brighter light as we continue to see leisure travel begin to bounce back, even as corporate travel continues to lag. People who travel for pleasure are eager to get out of quarantines, work-from-home scenarios and the year-long curtailment of travel. While domestic travel was surging during the recent holidays, international travel remains depressed given the pandemic-related border restrictions, including the recently enacted rules about returning to the United States after traveling abroad.
We believe that because of the confidence in the safety measures implemented by transportation companies, hotels, restaurants and tourist destinations such as Disney World, that domestic travel will continue to return. It is the high-end domestic travelers who are leading the way in the return to the skies and these are now our most valuable customers.
Developing the leisure travel market will likely be another pivot that the transportation industry will be forced to make. There will be questions in the corporate travel sector that were previously never thought of such as; Exactly when is corporate travel necessary? The answer is likely to be – not as much as before. Video calls and other collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams, Monday.com and Zoho enable remote teamwork. These tools are bound to replace some onsite meetings and conferences.
Also, history does show that, after a recession, business travel takes much longer than leisure travel to bounce back. As an example, the 2008–09 financial crisis took five years for international corporate travel to recover as compared with two years for international leisure travel. Regional and domestic business travel will likely rebound first as some companies and industry sectors will want to resume in-person sales and customer meetings as soon as they safely can. At Ecko Worldwide Transportation, we remain ready to provide Satisfaction in Every Turn when you’re ready to travel again.