When can we start selling again?“
For those of us in the travel industry, the biggest complication during this crisis has been the uncertainty of when we could return to normal. As we are already nearing the end of the year the answer may no longer be relevant because we are now running out of ideas – and money.
It will not be possible to survive another summer like 2020.
Indeed, restrictions such as those we have seen this year could completely crush the travel industry as we know it today.
This means that we in the industry have no choice but to be optimistic and assume that Covid will be gone thanks to a combination of vaccines, heard immunity and health passports.
Taking this positive outlook as a given, helps us to focus on our “pre-Covid” business questions, such as:
How are people booking? Where are they going? How much are they willing to spend? What products are they buying?
Personally, bringing these questions back to the table feels great because this is what we are good at. We love selling the best possible holidays to our clients and making money by doing so.
With this in mind, let’s consider the potential travel trends for 2021.
We cannot and should not clone our plans for 2019. Even without the effects of Covid to consider, travel is a dynamic industry which reinvents itself every year with or without a global crisis.
From a mass-marketing perspective, I strongly believe it has never been easier to predict the next year’s customer behaviour and travel trends.
2021 will be the year of repeat custom and discounts.
In my opinion, 2021 will not be the year to discover a hidden or unknown island but rather to visit a well-known destination again. „Risk-averse travel“ will dominate, as our customers want to ensure they have only great holidays in the coming year.
This is good news for those destinations with a loyal customer base and even better considering these “returners” do not need a lot of „mass-marketing-influence”. Risk-averse customers tend to make decisions based on past experiences.
“How about we go to Corsica, as we had such a great time there four or five years ago?”
In my opinion, this will be the question that starts most holiday planning discussions in the coming weeks and months.
The second driver for our risk-averse customers, looking to travel in 2021, is discounts. Destinations without a loyal customer base or a unique identifying factor may need to spend a lot in terms of discounts and marketing.
“Beach resort XY for -50%? Sounds like a great deal!”
Large numbers of travellers will expect huge discounts (real or otherwise) for replaceable destinations and their booking choices will be driven by these big offers.
So will repeat-custom and discounts be the only important trends in 2021?
It sounds simple but yes, I believe this will be the case although niche markets will see different behaviour, I’m sure and sustainability will grow in importance.
The good thing about looking to the future through this simplified vision, is that most destinations have no choice but to go for repeat-custom or discounts. Knowing their position in the market will mean sticking to certain target groups.
In my opinion, the crucial point here is that destinations and tour operators do not mix these two approaches. If a destination already has a loyal customer base then it would be wrong to push extreme discounts or invest heavily in mass-marketing. On the other hand, destinations without a loyal customer base should focus on providing clear and strong offers to entice the many customers looking to these in order to travel in the coming year.
Either way, 2021 should be an easy year to plan for when it comes to making decisions regarding marketing strategies, which is good news in the short term!
Personally however, I am already looking forward to a more complex and challenging customer in 2022.
How do you see the situation?