Where is travel on its road to recovery?
Where is travel on its road to recovery?
Travel, perhaps more so than many industries, has experienced several truly difficult years. From a pandemic-induced shutdown to global conflict and fuel costs as high as 35,000 feet, it’s hard to think of a more bitter cocktail of events than those set off in 2020.
Some worry that the recovering will be hampered in 2023 with everyone choosing to cut costs to cope with rising energy costs and the symptoms of an inflationary economy.
Forecasts generally conclude that travel won’t return to pre-2019 just yet due to the many disruptive events still continuing – the ongoing invasion of Ukraine as well as the COVID-19 situation in China continue to present a barrier to a speedy recovery for many industries. Yet, despite increased costs of both air travel and hotel stays, tourists remain undeterred as Bloomberg reports.
Britain saw more inbound visits than anticipated in 2022, with 29.7 million people spending £25.9 billion, according to VisitBritain. Spending in 2022 was 91% of 2019 levels, which is surprising given that the Omicron variant prevented a great deal of travel for early 2022. VisitBritain is forecasting 2023 to achieve 104% of 2019 levels of inbound spending, which is quite a rapid recovery.
The biggest impediment to overall recovery remains the talent shortage, a challenge for many industries but travel in particular – some are reluctant to pursue, or resume, a career in travel due to the swift nature of its shutdown during the pandemic. Without suitable resource, the quality of customer experiences will only decline. This has been further exacerbated in Britain by strike action by air and rail workers, leaving many journeys severely disrupted over the Christmas period of 2022.
And like many industries that are currently experiencing COVID-induced digitalisation, it is particularly hard to find tech and data talent to oversee these large-scale digital overhauls of legacy travel businesses. In order for travel to recover whilst transforming to account for customer pull, companies will need to find ways to attract and retain tech-savvy talent.
It is not clear now which companies will emerge leaders on the talent front. The company with the right culture, the right approach to flexible working, the right benefit offerings and advancement opportunities will surge ahead – but right now, it isn’t at all clear what ‘right’ really looks like. Then again, the winner of the talent war may still lose to the company that correctly invests in and deploys technology to overcome those same staff shortages.
Despite numerous challenges, both past and future, the trajectory of travel as an industry remains upward. Some lines of business may recover more so than others as customer behaviours continue to move so fluidly, but there is reason to be optimistic. The desire to hop on a plane to a tropical climate is alive and well, despite all the doom and gloom.