What we all have seen is a change through every aspect of our lives because of the coronavirus pandemic especially in the travel trading community.
According to Mark Meader, senior vice president of industry affairs and education for the American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA), “Certainly, permanent change will occur once the pandemic is over. All agencies should prepare if we ever should have another downfall again. This preparation needs change.” Professional relationships between consumers and advisors and the agents and their host will be more important than. Other permanent changes, like the habit of using and practicing online face-to-face communication, is increasing.
It is a virtual world right now with Zoom and other virtual meeting platforms. Agents are expected to leverage face-to-face video technology to build and carefully grow relationships with enthusiasm.
They’ll also need to “adopt new tactics to leverage technology to its full potential,” she said, citing Cruise Planners’ Where2Next Virtual Event Travel Series that lets advisors invite clients to explore new destination opportunities together virtually.
Just like after the unfortunate of 9/11, there will be new stress on health and safety measurements. The cruise lines disclose new muster drill policies and boarding guidelines that will be counted as permanent changes.
Technology leads to changes in creating touch-free ordering, boarding, room key access, and more.
Flexible cancellation policies, which make people book vacations with less concern than ever, will remain in action, for the time being, however, these policies will not stand after the crises is over.
Since so many had to skip traveling this year, it can be well predicted that another change in the upcoming year -hopefully after Corona- is going to be taking more and long-distance trips.
Maybe for once, we get to see that people won’t take going on vacations for granted!