NEW YORK, July 1, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- What a difference a year makes. The Summer of 2020 was a complete bust, and any form of travel or summer vacation was relegated to your backyard, if you are fortunate to have one, or short road trips by car. In May 2020, ExpertFlyer reached out to several travel industry experts to get their thoughts and predictions about what a post-pandemic recovery might look like for the travel industry. Fast forward one year later and the Summer of 2021 is looking quite bright for consumers and businesses alike. As the U.S. approaches a seventy-percent vaccination rate and states of emergency have been officially lifted, consumers are taking to the skies once again.
ExpertFlyer circled back with these experts to discuss what they got right, what they got wrong, and what completely surprised them over the past year. Kimberly Wilson Wetty (Valerie Wilson Travel), Jay Singh (Simple Flying), Jonathan Breeze (AARDY), and Chris Lopinto (ExpertFlyer) participated in the follow up story and offered additional thoughts for the future. As part of the story, ExpertFlyer also included some video commentary from Jason Guggenheim, Boston Consulting Group Global Leader of Travel and Tourism who recently participated in a Yahoo Finance Live panel to discuss what the evolution of travel means for business.
In general, everyone was excited and encouraged about how the Summer of 2021 is shaping up and most agree that the trend will continue through 2022 when they believe travel will be back to pre-pandemic levels. However, most also believe that business travel will remain below pre-pandemic levels until 2022 or even 2023.
During her interview in May 2020, Kimberly Wilson Wetty from Valerie Wilson Travel discussed the rumor of a vaccine becoming available as soon as December; a rumor proven to be true. Wilson Wetty felt that even the discussion of a vaccine that early would boost confidence and increase psychological positivity among consumers.
"Hindsight is 20-20, right?" Wilson Wetty said with a smile. "When I think back to a year ago, we still had hope that the recovery would start in late 2020 and move into early 2021, but we are so excited by the progress that has been made, thus far. Between the vaccine rollout and our preferred partners constantly innovating to make travel safer for clients, we are thrilled with how quickly travel is beginning to return! The pent-up demand is real!" she exclaimed.
Jay Singh at Simple Flying suggested that the Summer of 2020 would be a wonderful opportunity to experience local activities and suggested using the time to take virtual tours of destinations to consider visiting once it was safe to travel again. He also predicted that airlines would allow frequent flyers to retain their current status for at least another year. "I think what surprised me the most was the airlines announcing the end of change fees," Jay Singh said. "Without it, airlines will need to find new ways to make up for that lost revenue. While it is not exactly clear where airlines expect to make it up, for passengers who need more flexibility, this is a huge deal." Singh also sees the rush to travel extending into the holiday season later this year. "Pent-up demand is starting to show itself for the summer, and those trends will certainly continue into the fall, and I think that by January 2022 the airlines will be entering a phase of more sustained profitability with most passengers coming back to the skies.
But Singh believes that June 2022 is really the month to watch. "By and large, summer 2021 is gearing up to be a very successful one for airline leisure bookings, though there are some strong limitations on the return of travel," he said. "Lodging and rental cars have been in short supply, and shortages in labor have led to long waits at restaurants, concessions, amusement parks, and more. June 2022 is going to determine exactly how the recovery has shaped out. By then, the travel industry is expected to have solved much of its shortages. Summer 2022 might be the one where passengers who were priced out of that trip to Yellowstone or Maui may be able to travel again and access rental cars or hotels."
For the range of COVID-inspired challenges consumers faced last May, beyond contracting the virus, Jonathan Breeze at AARDY, an online travel insurance marketplace, says that "Cancel for Any Reason" travel insurance is the way to go since it allows for 75% of the trip cost to be reimbursed in the event of cancellation. "Cancel for Any Reason has become a more mainstream policy option – more and more people are looking for this flexibility," he said.
"One area that I was very happy with this last year was the way in which the travel insurers responded," Breeze continued. "They demonstrated great flexibility in allowing customers to move travel dates, suspend policies, and change destinations. That flexibility helped customers save a lot of money in otherwise wasted premiums and built a large pool of goodwill for the future."
Chris Lopinto, president of ExpertFlyer, coined 2020 as the "year of the staycation" back in May 2020 and said the sooner consumers understood and embraced that notion, they could begin to regain some semblance of normalcy in their lives. Lopinto also correctly noted that booking trips well into 2021 should be made sooner than later because, in his words, "the award inventory generosity by the airlines will last only as long as planes are empty."
Lopinto was surprised at how quickly travel came back in 2021 and credits early access to a vaccine and stimulus money many consumers are using for travel. He also believes Europe will fully open by the end of this summer, once the EU determines how it wants to handle vaccine passports.
"By mid-2022, demand for leisure travel should be back to normal levels. Business travel, however, will likely be at lower levels versus 2019 for a couple more years as businesses realize that video calls can replace many, but not all, business trips," Chris Lopinto added.
Visit ExpertFlyer's blog to read the entire story. For more on the evolution of travel post-Covid and how it will affect business travel, watch Yahoo! Finance's interview with Jason Guggenheim, Boston Consulting Group Global Leader of Travel and Tourism.
About Valerie Wilson Travel
Valerie Wilson Travel, A FROSCH Company, is an award-winning travel management firm that has grown into an industry leader with offices across the United States servicing Corporate, Leisure, and Meetings, Incentives & Fulfillment clients. Headquartered in New York, NY, VWT was originally founded by Valerie Ann Wilson, Chairman & CEO in 1981, and is managed along with her two daughters, Co-Presidents Jennifer Wilson-Buttigieg and Kimberly Wilson Wetty, as well as COO, Brian Buttigieg. All VWT locations are proud members of Virtuoso® - the travel industry's leading luxury network. The agency has been consistently named on the annual Travel Weekly Power List as well as Travel + Leisure's A-List.
About Simple Flying
Simple Flying is the world's largest aviation news website. The publication was launched in June 2018, by young entrepreneur Arran Rice. Their goal is to provide a one-stop hub for all the essential stories on commercial aviation and sharing the news in a simple, accessible way. The site and company are registered in the United Kingdom under the name of Simple Flying Limited, and the company has a fully remote, international team of 25+ people. Travelers can access Simple Flying to read all of the latest news on our website, simpleflying.com, and download their free Android and iOS app. In addition, they create daily videos for YouTube and produce a weekly podcast. The podcast can be found by searching for 'Simple Flying' on your favorite podcast app.
About AARDY
AARDY is a Travel Insurance Marketplace. Founded in 2015, AARDY specializes in supporting US Seniors as they travel internationally. AARDY donates 10% of its annual profits to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation – a charity that supports the children of fallen US Special Forces.
About ExpertFlyer.com
Each month, ExpertFlyer's One-on-One blog goes face-to-face with the travel industry's leading decision makers to discuss and address topics relevant to many of today's business and frequent travelers.
ExpertFlyer.com was conceived and created by an eclectic team consisting of a veteran elite tier frequent flyer, an airline captain and corporate travel manager, and information technology professionals to deliver a 24/7 real time powerful air travel information service. The company provides its subscribers and corporate travel managers alike with a complete, concise, and efficient way to access the ever-changing details of worldwide air travel information. For more information, please visit expertflyer.com.
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Media Contact
Lou Desiderio, ExpertFlyer.com, +1 9176270912, [email protected]
SOURCE ExpertFlyer.com
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