Travel & Tourism is facing a challenge right now.

But there will be some changes. And for some parts of the tourism industry it will be a slow and painful comeback. But the travel & tourism sector is so passion driven, that it will make a big comeback.

The Covid-19 virus has been the biggest challenge to tourism since World War 2. A time when tourism was only for the few.

For the past 2 months, the tourism industry has been down about 98% compared to the year before. But it’s not the end for travel & tourism. It’s an extremely liberal industry, with some of the best entrepreneurs on the planet. And it will bounce back. But there will be focus on some things that we have previously not seen. And some parts of the industry will suffer for quite some time.

The crowded places will get a welcome break.

The past 2-3 years there has been many articles about cities like Rome, Venice, Barcelona and Dubrovnik drowning in visitors. To the point where the locals who earn money from them start to say that they need to reduce numbers. Well, this is coming now. Until there is a vaccine for Covid-19, the last places you want to be is somewhere, where you will be rubbing shoulders with thousands of people. I’m sure they will still get some visitors. But it will be a lot fewer in the coming 12 months.

On the other hand, then smaller and lesser known places might actually get a boost from this. A few people might be scared of travel as a whole in the coming months. But many will want to travel, as this is for many people the aspect of life that makes them the happiest. But they will think twice about crowded places. So my prediction will be that some little mountain towns will see a reasonable amount of tourism coming their way, while big cities will suffer for a while.

Smaller hotels will fare better than big hotel resorts.

Big resort hotels will take some time to recover. Simply cause many people will shy away from crowds in the next few months. And big hotel buffets might become a thing of the past. They will as a minimum become more hygienic. They were always a danger to food safety anyway. So fine with me here.

I think mountain holidays will be a hit this year.

What is the future for aviation?

Flying has suffered tremendously in the past few weeks. And they are not about to fully recover. But they will recover fully, once there is a vaccine or a cure. Until then, they will only partly recover. But they WILL partly recover. My guess will be that the middle seat will be left empty on many airlines, in the coming months. This will increase the ticket price by about 50%. But I think this will not be such a problem, as the comfort will increase too, when you do not have that bloody annoying middle seat occupied by someone that there is no space for in the first place.Some airlines will also use masks, partly or fully. If predictions are right that we have a vaccine in about a year, then aviation will be almost fully recovered in two years from now.

Meanwhile, I feel quite sure that traveling by your own means will be growing. And things like cycling and hiking tourism will see big growth. Bicycle sales have already gone up big time in many countries around the world, since the Covid-19 crisis started.

Hiking will be a hit this year.

What about border crossings?

Tourism relies heavily on people crossing borders. And right now, most of these borders are closed. This is actually the single biggest issue for travel & tourism worldwide right now. But some borders are starting to open. And within the EU, travel will most likely be free again from mid June 2020. But this will all in all be a slow process to get the whole world going again. Making overseas tours a real challenge the coming 12 to 18 months, if you ask me.

Overseas tourism will also get back on track. But it might take quite a while, as some countries have handled the Covid-19 crisis so badly, that their citizens might now be allowed in to certain countries for a while. My prediction is that it will take between 3 to 5 years before borders are as open as we had them prior to Covid-19. But we can still travel in that period. The choice of countries will just be more limited to certain nations.

Cruise ship tourism is in deep trouble.

Cruise ship tourism will be the last sector in Travel & Tourism to get back on the feet. We have simply had too many stories about people being stranded on cruise ships that they could not get off, because of virus. And it will generally take a few months before you can convince several thousand people that cramming themselves in to the same ship. On top of that, the largest group among cruises ship tourists are elderly people. And many of those have medical conditions. These people will not be back on the cruise ships before there is a vaccine. But the cruises will eventually be back. But they will be the last to recover.

Now this was my personal little travel & tourism forecast. And this just reflects my personal opinion. But I base it on having worked the past 30 years in travel & tourism. So I know how innovative the industry is. And I know how far the travel & tourism entrepreneurs are ready to go, in order to get this back on track. and they are ready to go very far. This is an industry where we are not in it for the money. It’s very passion driven. And that fact will be a driving factor in getting the world to travel and explore again.

Cheers to a future with lot’s of travels.