EUROMONITOR International, a global market research company, projects tourism recovery in terms of spending will revert to pre-pandemic levels by 2024 at the earliest, but largely warned that recovery could take longer.
Its latest research, “Travel Rewired: Innovation Strategies for a Resilient Recovery” was presented last week at the World Travel Market 2021 in London. Euromonitor Head of Travel Research, Caroline Bremner, said travel spend decreased worldwide by 75 percent in 2020, as Covid-19 spread in many countries.
She warned, “It will be a long hard recovery. In the worst case, we could be looking at a delay to 2026 in return to pre-crisis spending levels. If we have new variants that are more resilient to the vaccination program, that will further delay the situation.”
Euromonitor said the pandemic has sped up the pivoting of travel businesses online. As such, online travel sales are project to regain their footing by 2022, hitting almost $500 billion. Data provided showed online travel spend jumped by 5 percent last year and online sales accounted for 54 percent, globally.
The research indicated about 39 percent of the travel industry said they were investing in implementing new technology as a means to future-proof business and 53 percent of travel companies are focusing on sustainability features to guide initiatives and sustainable development goals (SDGs). Drawn up by United Nations member-states, SDGs form a blueprint to global peace and prosperity.
Cautious reopening in AsPac
The Asia-Pacific region “has the greatest potential for growth, driven by the rise in middle-class households,” according to Euromonitor. But Bremner noted:
“In the short-term this region is really struggling to reopen. The lack of global standard as yet is hampering progress in Asia-Pacific.” Many countries, the company said, are erring on the side of conservative caution, resisting reopening to non-essential travel for health reasons.
Also, Bremner said fewer than 4 percent of the population have been vaccinated in emerging and low-income regions. “Once we have a greater flow of vaccines around the world, and a global pass, we will see the situation improve.”
But she was hopeful that “by 2024, we expect Asia-Pacific to become on track and to have recovered losses.”
Euromonitor, however, noticed a “disconnect” in the adoption of new technology in the region. “Despite the high levels of smartphone adoption by consumers, only 46.73 percent of travel businesses in Asia Pacific offered a mobile app in 2021. By far the most important application is self-service check-in/ mobile key, along with 24-hour customer service.”
It added, “The region demonstrated the highest level of SDG [sustainable development goals] engagement at 59.5 percent, especially with SDG12: Responsible consumption and production. However, products like ‘flights to nowhere’ and ‘cruises to nowhere’ highlight that there is still a long way to go to achieve truly purposeful travel and tourism.”
Misaligned goals, investments in sustainability
Another disconnect in the region that Euromonitor noticed is that close to 65 percent of its consumers want to have a positive impact on the environment in their daily lives. However, “only 29 percent of travel businesses are investing in developing new sustainable products and services to help them achieve this goal.”
Among the major obstacles in the “Great Restart” of global travel and tourism is the “lack of interoperability between the various health systems” and the absence of a global uniform standard to which countries can subscribe, according to Euromonitor.
In the Philippines, for instance, tourism leaders have complained of the numerous travel apps, portals, and forms travelers have to log on to or fill up just to be able to visit leisure destinations. Its official vaccination certificate for individuals has yet to be accepted in many countries.
Euromonitor found last year, 41.3 percent of travel companies around the world provided a mobile app/website, but this declined to 37.1 percent in 2021, marking a major disconnect between consumers and brands.
“This strategy needs reconsidering, especially when 26.8 percent of all travel sales are expected to be booked via mobile, amounting to $774 billion by 2026.”
In a recent travel and tech forum hosted by the Tourism Promotions Board, tourism stakeholders underscored the importance of the “human touch” and “face-to-face” interactions in reopening the industry, instead of relying on digital solutions. (See, “At travel and tech forum, need for ‘human touch’ underscored, in the BusinessMirror, October 11, 2021.)