11 minute read
Travel update
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Trapped travel
Whilst our industry strives to create the best experience for passengers onboard, other elements of the travel product remain unpredictable. April Waterston talks to travel industry experts to discover their views
December 9, 2021 marked my first long-haul flight since COVID took hold. I was practically giddy with excitement to board the plane, grinning ear-to-ear from take-off to landing. I savoured what previously I might have taken for granted: scrolling through the IFE, the drinks service, choosing my meal. Ultimately those eight hours were well spent soaking in the onboard service – for me, the joy of travel was back at last.
Here at Onboard Hospitality we’ve been championing the inflight experience as an essential component in reinvigorating the ‘joy’ of travel for the past 18 months. However, despite my favourable experience onboard, overall I found the travel experience to be incredibly stressful. The rapidly changing rules for testing and quarantine caused many a headache, and collating the correct proof of vaccines, tests and so on was trickier than I had expected. Even with the VeriFLY app at hand, the amount of research needed to ensure I was doing the right tests at the right time, and trying to source the correct documents all from my mobile device was less than ideal. Considering my job keeps me at the for front of the latest necessities to travel, the fact that even I struggled to travel confidently led me to sympathise with passengers who may be less clued up and seriously put off booking.
Everything the onboard sector does is with the passenger experience in mind. But, ultimately, the passenger experience is far further reaching than just the time onboard. With that in mind, I spoke to two travel industry experts and fellow journalists to explore wider sentiment among business and leisure travellers from the UK –seeing this as something of an indicator of global trends – and asked what more can be done to support a smooth recovery.
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Business travellers
As editor of The Business Travel Magazine, Bev Fearis is an expert on the UK business travel sector. She is beginning the new year with a sense of optimism.
“There’s no doubt the arrival of Omicron set the recovery back a bit towards the end of 2021 but the UK Government’s decision to relax the testing and quarantine rules for arrivals has helped boost business travel confidence again,” she says.
“As we saw when restrictions were eased last autumn, there’s definitely a pent-up demand for face-to-face meetings. After months of being restricted to virtual communication, business people are keen to meet in person again and as soon as borders were opened on key business routes, particularly transatlantic routes, bookings came rushing in.
“According to the latest survey by the Global Business Travel Association, half of global senior finance professionals expect their company’s business travel spend to reach 2019 levels in 2022 while 86% of business travellers report that they need to travel to meet their business goals.”
Are we doing enough?
Are airlines taking the right steps to encourage travellers back onboard? Fearis thinks they're heading in the right direction. “From very early on in the pandemic airlines did a great job, in my opinion, of instilling confidence in flying in
Airlines need to help relation to passenger passengers navigate the health and hygiene and complexities of testing and quarantine measures communicated all the extra measures very effectively to their customers. But what’s denting confidence now isn’t so much the fear of catching COVID onboard or at the airport but rather the fear of being stranded overseas or being forced to quarantine due to the COVID rules suddenly changing or not having the correct paperwork. Even for frequent business travellers it’s difficult to keep track of the fast-changing rules – ie. knowing what type of test is required, how many days before the flight you need to take the test, what documentation you need to provide and in what format. It’s also expensive and time-consuming to do the tests and the necessary paperwork. “What airlines need to focus on now is helping passengers navigate the complexities of testing and quarantine measures to make it as stressfree as possible. The industry has gone some way to doing this with the various digital health passports – CommonPass, VeriFLY, the IATA Travel Pass to name just a few – but there needs to be one common, global system. I think a standard, regulated scheme is what is required to gain the confidence and trust of travellers.”
On the ground
When it comes to boosting passenger numbers on rail, Fearis feels there is room for
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improvement. “The pandemic pause has intensified the focus on sustainability in boardrooms across the world and the rail sector stands to benefit, in theory, but there are still barriers when it comes to switching from air to rail. Cost, the reliability of service (particularly with the recent impact of COVID absence) and good connections are all key for business travellers, but areas where rail can fall short.
“From my own personal experience, the quality and reliability of onboard wifi is not where it needs to be. On two recent rail journeys, where posters everywhere boasted about the free wifi, I was unable to connect. On the way to a recent conference, with 20-plus fellow delegates in Premium, none of us were able to connect to the wifi or make use of an app which promised the option of ordering refreshments from the comfort of our seats. In the end, this meant walking from one end of the train to the other, through many busy carriages, to get a cup of tea. Reliability is key."
Leisure travellers
Steve Hartridge is editor of Selling Travel Magazine, and with decades of experience as both a traveller and travel journalist under his belt, he is well-positioned to speak on behalf of holidaymakers, travel agents and tour operators alike. On the whole Hartridge feels a sense of positivity within the leisure travel sector as we head in to the new year.
“It feels like a long-awaited corner might have turned,” he says. “Confidence and bookings for international travel is looking increasingly positive, according to tour operators such as Jet 2 and easyjet Holidays that immediately saw a big increase in bookings. Similarly, Not Just
Travel said up to January 10 there was a 50% year-on-year increase in bookings from the post-Christmas period, a positive sign that travel is on the up. “I think it is now a case of taking a collective intake of breath and hoping that there will be no other twist in the COVID story that leads to a reintroduction of confidencesapping procedures and protocols need for travel and costly tests.”
Cruising along
“The cruise industry found itself in the eye of the storm at the very start of the pandemic when there was an outbreak aboard a Princess Cruises’ ship that led to a long period of enforced onboard quarantine for passengers and over 25 deaths. Cruising effectively shut down for over 18 months, with countries around the world banning ships.
“The industry has worked tirelessly to put new measures in place to reassure nervous travellers. Several cruise lines enjoyed a highly successful series of Round UK cruises last summer, designed to show that cruising was, once again, a safe travel option. However, every time the sector seems on the point of a full recovery, another outbreak of COVID on another ship somewhere in the world knocks it back again. Ocean cruising particularly is still in recovery mode. How do you plan a round-the-world or multi-destination voyage if the chances are that a significant number of those countries could still be closed to foreign nationals? Royal Caribbean International, for example, has recently cancelled sailings up until March on four ships due to the continuing spread of COVID-19.”
Remaining obstacles
“In my view, recovery is all about two things: Restoring greater confidence, and the practical side of the ease and cost of travel," Hartridge concludes. "Consumers need to be reassured that when they book a holiday, it will actually happen, they will go and arrive back on their intended times and that the chances are they will return back healthy. We are getting there but not quite there yet.” •
