With the world under lockdown and the future of travel uncertain, we turned to some luxury travel industry insiders for their post-pandemic predictions
A global pandemic is something nobody could have predicted when coming into 2020. In the early throes of the year, when news reports of the novel coronavirus were surfacing, individuals across the world could never have foreseen the state of the world today, less than six months later.
As a result of the continued spread of the virus, boarders worldwide have been closed, quarantine measures put in place and daily flights drastically reduced – resulting in travel plans being put on pause for the foreseeable future.
With summer approaching – a time when the masses would normally be jetting off on trips both near and far – stay at home orders are still largely stopping many from leaving their homes, making the idea of jetting off on a two week break seem like a distant reality.
As it becomes more likely that travel will be off the cards for the remainder of the year, we’re turning our attention to how the luxury travel industry will come out of the pandemic. Will we think twice about the way we travel and the impact it has, or will we simply revert back to our old ways as soon as we can hop on a flight? These luxury travel experts shared their thoughts.
Focus on hygiene
An unsurprisingly result of the pandemic is a continued focus on hygiene and cleanliness. We’ve all become accustomed to carrying hand sanitiser with us wherever we go, washing our hands frequently and being careful of the surfaces we touch, and this trend will definitely be sticking around for some time and affecting the way we travel.
Dean Winter, Group Director of Operations of Swire Hotels predicts "that people’s attention to and demand for hygiene and cleanliness will increase.” Continuing, Dean explains that “people won’t change how they travel but will expect hotels to airlines to be increasing sanitisation measures.”
Lucy Jackson, Co-Founder and Director of Lightfoot Travel echoes this, saying "the increased sanitisation of flights and hotels will understandably be very important. Many luxury hotel brands are already rolling out new initiatives to increase cleanliness standards including a contactless service, guest service apps and new hygiene technology, which is very reassuring."