The Travel Industry’s Journey Back to Profitability - Five Key Questions

The days of unfettered travel are not likely returning anytime soon. There continues to be a myriad of restrictions on where you can go, what you can do when you get there, and what you need to do when you get back. Not to mention the enumerable hardships encountered just getting to your destination of choice. In the new travel paradigm a two connection trip is now considered non-stop.

Consumers desperately want to travel again. There is a high level of pent up demand in the marketplace. But what will consumer expectations be when they are finally ready to travel again? And, are service providers positioned to be able to deliver against those demands? Those challenges, along with all the significant changes these companies have had to implement in order to survive, make it unlikely that pre-pandemic business strategies will be viable going forward. The low cost, self-service model that drove so much growth across the industry over the last few years will need to be replaced by approaches that meet the evolving needs of the traveling consumer, while providing travel companies with a path back to profitability.

As happened post 9/11, travel service providers will need to transform in order to thrive going forward. Future success will depend on their ability to quickly understand where the market opportunities lie and then to develop and implement new strategies that will position them to capture that business.

There are five key questions that travel companies need to answer in order to transform their businesses so they can compete successfully in the new world order. Your responses will provide the foundational data needed to help define the optimal path forward:

1) What services will consumers expect you to provide that were not previously core to your operations?

2) What types of new experiences will consumers demand and do you have the ability to provide them?

3) What types of incentives, partnerships and marketing programs will consumers respond to and how will that impact your existing programs?

4) What will you do to meet consumer expectations that your company is legitimately focused on sustainable business practices?

5 What information will consumers require to feel comfortable making the decision to travel and do you have the resources to provide it in a timely manner?

Not all of these questions will directly apply to your particular business, but some element of each is likely to be relevant. This is a complicated and evolving situation and answering these questions is just the beginning of the process. Watch out for our next post, where we’ll continue on this business transformation journey.