Some early but clear signs of recovery in Asia in domestic travel have begun to emerge, at least in North Asia markets like China, Hong Kong and South Korea. International travel has yet to rebound, but general appetite hasn’t faded, according to Sojern.
In a webinar hosted by Sojern, its director of travel insights & analytics, Amber Kuo, reported that the company began seeing an increase in flight search to China in the past two weeks or so. She remarked the spike was so big, it was initially considered a potential error, but was actually being driven by Chinese travellers looking at options to return to China, now that the Covid-19 situation had somewhat settled there.
“[It is] because China is now safer than the rest of the world in terms of how they are controlling the virus, but then it’s also a little bit negative because it shows other countries…are having a harder time so Chinese people are incentivised to go back home.”
Kuo predicted that there would be a big uptick in China’s domestic travel soon, particularly after the end of the quarantine in Hubei province was announced. As people begin to return to work, a sense of normality is gradually being restored in cities.
Nevertheless, many countries are still in the throes of the crisis so it is likely that regional travel will remain low, particularly as a second wave of cases hits many countries. Post-crisis, many will tend to choose destinations closer to home before greater travel confidence is restored.
“People are going back to countries where the virus is under control and people feel safe…but they’re bringing the virus with them so now there’s a second wave,” she explained.
Countries like Singapore that have responded quickly and aggressively (for example, temporarily not permitting any non-residents or citizens to enter the country) will manage the ‘second wave’ best, as there is a correlation between strict measures and crisis recovery rates.
It has helped instil a greater sense of safety and confidence amongst locals and residents that can serve to encourage domestic travel’s return.
Sojern reported seeing a sizeable spike in Singapore hotel searches domestically after the first wave hit, showing that residents feel safe and able to live relatively normally despite the pandemic. That being said, the second wave of cases that resulted in stricter measures resulted in another drop in searches, but is expected to rebound soon.
In the rest of the world, other markets may take longer to show early signs of recovery, likely due to their late response to the crisis. In the USA, international flight searches declined far earlier than domestic travel as the pandemic took hold. American outbound and domestic travel search saw a downturn as people became increasingly cautious but it was not as severe as other countries.
LATAM saw an impact even later than North America but was unique in that domestic travel declined before international. Digging into the data further, Kuo explained this could be attributed to the less cautious, almost dismissive stance many LATAM country leaders have taken in response to the crisis – for example, Brazilian president, Jair Bolonsaro.
Understanding the geopolitical situation of different travel markets can therefore act as a good predictor of when the travel industry will begin to recover and what triggers will prompt that recovery.
In the grand scheme of things, while travel has taken more than a big knock in the face of Covid-19, the industry will experience a strong rebound. The appetite for travel will never disappear or decline, but it is without a doubt a challenging waiting game for businesses across the industry.
Noreen Henry, chief revenue officer, Sojern said, “We see that the booking window is lengthening. People still want to travel but they’re just not booking right now.” Sojern’s data shows that dreaming and planning phases of the travel funnel are very much active, revealing underlying consumer optimism about the opportunities they will seize to travel, once the crisis settles.
In the meantime, she advised that businesses “first focus on survival – yourself, your health, your employees, the things that are most important… That enables you to think about recovery… [then] lean into things that are going to make sense [for consumers], like flexible policies, promotions that are stimulating travel.”
