Travel and Tourism: Steps Toward Recovery

May 2020

Travel and Tourism: Steps Toward Recovery

Introduction

For years, the travel industry has benefited from the belief that the world is small and international borders were a simple inconvenience. Today, the impact of COVID-19 has led to global quarantine measures that are having a dire impact on travel and tourism brands, regardless of size, service or location.

We believe these same brands can build toward a stronger recovery by finding ways to be useful to both consumers and communities in crisis.

At the onset of COVID-19’s shelter-in-place measures, most travel brands continued to promote and sell instead of adjusting their creative strategies. Once the gravity of the crisis was apparent, marketing messages changed to acknowledge the virus and suspend most promotions.

In this new paradigm, brands need to think about what comes next as everyone adjusts to an evolving reality. This document is intended to help you:

1. Create an action plan based on a new journey.

2. Identify new need states and be helpful.

3. Rethink your tone to be relevant and appropriate.

4. Begin to consider the new normal in travel as you prepare for the recovery.

In the meantime, lean into your purpose and look for ways to help and support your employees, business partners and community constituents. Brands that embrace such efforts will benefit from this work on the other side of this crisis as they rebuild public confidence in the entire travel industry moving forward.

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Travel and Tourism: Steps Toward Recovery

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01 Create an Action Plan Based on a New Journey

Below is a simple framework to organize and create ideas for the next few months. It’s a map of the new consumer journey you never thought you’d need, and a point of reference as you continue to work through toward a recovery strategy.

Your brand needs to quickly show how it is useful. 

• Right now, the Adjust Phase has visitors and travelers hunkering down and trying to work through the logistics of living caused by the magnitude of COVID-19 and the implementation of shelter-in-place. What can your brand do now to alleviate confusion or add a little joy?

• Next comes the Peak Phase, where your constituents adjust to juggling home, work and life, all without a definitive light at the end of the tunnel. How does your brand help them physically, emotionally or mentally?

• The Recovery Phase will bring with it a new normal: How do you provide clarity for this unsure time? How do you collectively create a sigh of relief with your visitors, guests and partners?

Adjust Phase Peak Phase Recover Phase

What should your brand be doing as people are preparing and adjusting to the reality of staying home?

How does your brand’s role in employees’, consumers’ and communities’ lives change while people are restricted to home and social distancing? How should your brand’s actions shift to reflect that, while building a bridge to recovery?

What is the new relationship between your product/service and the consumer? What does that mean for your staff? For communication planning?

Use this framework and the following prompts to develop your plan.

e.g, Need to still enjoy life in recovery

e.g, Need small moments to break cabin fever

e.g, Need to know how to operate in a new reality

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02 Identify New Need States and Be Helpful

Now is the time to double-down, lean into your brand voice and use your platforms as a force for public good as you determine how to bring solutions. Identify your organization's stakeholders and develop a robust communication strategy to stay engaged. Seize the role as travel industry champion and help lead the recovery for your community or industry. People are looking for brands they can trust right now, those who are helping during this crisis.

In the travel industry, destination organizations are seen as trusted sources for information by travelers, meeting planners and the communities they serve. This time is an opportunity to lean into that as experts, not only to those groups but the residents of the community. These efforts can include:

• Posting accurate and nonpartisan information about the status of the virus in your destination or state/province as well as important information from state and local authorities to help position your organization as an integral part of the business community, and more importantly, as a shared community value.

• Practicing outreach to both the tourism industry as well as the entire business community to build goodwill and affinity during these challenging times.

The result is this: Your brand adds significant value to the community at large. Your efforts will help position the organization as integral to the success of the community and likely to establish a renewed connection with business leaders that will advocate for the organization in the future.

56% 43% 40% 85%

Consumer Perceptions of Useful Brands

of consumers are happy to hear how brands are

helping out communities in response to the

coronavirus pandemic.

of consumers find it reassuring to hear from brands they know and

trust during these uncertain times.

want to hear how brands are responding to the COVID-19 outbreak.

want to hear from brands during this time.

Source: The American Association of Advertising Agencies

Travel and Tourism: Steps Toward Recovery

Additional ways to elevate your destination organization’s brand

Develop a section of your website as a resource/clearing house for your member businesses, business partners and community members. Include:

• Small business loan information or other financial resources.

• Important hospital, urgent care and mental health provider contacts.

• Listings of local restaurants that remain open for take-out.

• Links to CDC and local public health websites for staying up-to-date on guidance and directives.

Provide industry partners support for recovery by sharing best practices for their business. Think: instructions and optimizations on “Google my business” or OTA listing management as well as online review response strategies.

Utilize social channels to encourage engagement, connection and sharing of stories. Listen to what is being discussed online and participate in the conversations. Publish feel-good stories: Tell how your business or community is helping during these uncertain times. Pick a daily challenge to help your local constituents. Select one of your most vulnerable tourism industry sectors to partner with you. Think restaurants, hotels, attractions or cultural organizations.

Communicate about how you are supporting your employees and community through meaningful and important efforts. These actions are proofpoints of your brand’s utility to the communities you serve.

Travel brands taking the lead

VisitKC - https://www.visitkc.com/coronavirus

Visit Indy - Sending love to the Indy community

Visit Indy - https://www.indy.gov/topic/covid

United Airlines - using passenger flights for cargo to ship critical goods

Delta Air Lines - airlines are using passenger jets for cargo

Uber - https://www.uber.com/newsroom/movewhatmatters/

American Hotel & Lodging Assoc. - hotels provide first responders housing

Hertz - Hertz Provides Free Vehicle Rentals to New York City Healthcare Workers

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Five Stages of Travel

03 Rethink Your Tone to be Relevant and Appropriate

By now, you have assessed your messaging and media buys, content, promotions and PR initiatives, potentially sacrificing prior strategies to avoid appearing tone-deaf. Even the most irreverent brands have taken a more sober stance.

During a crisis, it is vital to find an appropriate voice for your brand. Your internal audiences, vendors and other stakeholders are paying close attention to what you say and do. Be serious, straightforward, optimistic and clear — transparency and truthfulness are expected.

And though people are not purchasing or planning trips right now, they are still likely dreaming of travel and seeking inspiration — now is not the time to go silent. Keep your brand top-of-mind by developing content with story at the core to create memorable connections with future visitors. And while every travel brand must determine their best course of action, marketers must become messengers, informed by data and equipped with empathy. Well-executed travel brand marketing can be inspirational, providing hope and respite to daily stress.

STUCK IN THE DREAMING PHASE

Travel brands, resorts and DMOs play an important role in providing inspiration to quarantined consumers dreaming of future vacations, even now — though they are temporarily stuck in the first stage of travel.

~50%Travelers who brainstormed

or started thinking about a trip online

1. Dreaming 2. Planning

5. Sharing 3. Booking

4. Experiencing

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04 Begin To Consider the New Normal in Travel as You Prepare for the Recovery

Though the pandemic has paralyzed the travel industry hard, analysts predict the industry will recover in ways that create new industry norms. As you plan your marketing efforts to coincide with the Recovery Phase of this crisis, several factors must be considered.

Capacity reductions

Airlines, hotels and other businesses with the ability to adjust capacity to current and projected near-term demand have done so. The airline industry has removed capacity at an alarming rate with global mainline fleet numbers returning to near 1990s levels. The great unknown in the U.S. recovery will be the impact of the various fleet removals major carriers have made in the last five weeks. Some network carriers suggest that the 50-seat regional jets they operate through capacity-purchase agreements with regional airlines will “not stick around long.” In other moves, they expect the early retirement of several workhorse aircraft such as the 757, 767 and MD88’s as well as smaller sub fleets like the Embraer 190 and MD-90. While these aircraft will eventually be replaced with newer, more fuel-efficient equipment such as the Boeing 737-Max and Airbus 320 Neo, the lag in introducing new equipment could impact capacity for many markets. Follow these areas closely as they will impact tourism recovery.

Hotel closures

The hotel sector has not been able to adjust capacity in the same way as the airline industry. Major cities nationwide are reporting major hotel closings, which are expected to continue until quarantine mandates are lifted and travel has resumed. While several hotel chains have made significant furlough moves, hotel capacity is expected to respond quickly to an uptick. In most markets, the economy “extended-stay” sector is the strongest of the weak. In the Recovery Phase, it will be interesting to see if hotel and airline brands attempt to maintain pricing discipline or if they adjust rates to spur demand.

Travel and Tourism: Steps Toward Recovery

Zoom impact

The biggest concern for airlines, hotels and the meetings industry will be how quickly business travel rebounds. As people quickly get accustomed to working effectively from home through virtual meeting spaces like Zoom and WebEx, they realize traveling for work isn’t an imperative to conducting business. While in-person meetings have great value, the need to attend them may be reduced. Most analysts are more confident in leisure travel and expect a healthy pent-up demand once the crisis subsides.

New expectations on cleanliness 

Moving forward, travelers will want to understand what airlines, resorts, hotels and any other travel-related businesses are doing in the areas of cleanliness, hygiene and social distancing. They will want to see the company or organization's ongoing commitment to their health and safety. Travel brands that can identify and document these efforts, initiatives, and possibly new technologies they are deploying to elevate their cleanliness standards will enhance their brand promise to their customers.

Social distancing initiatives

Once shelter in place orders are lifted, social distancing efforts may remain part of the new norm for some time. Many airlines have developed new seat maps that allow for social distancing parameters at the time of booking. Restaurants are already developing revised seating plans and hotels are spreading out hotel guests via room selection. Meeting planners will work with properties and convention centers to adjust to the new social distancing norms. These changes are sure to create opportunities to develop creative solutions to allow people to gather and conduct business and share ideas.

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Travel and Tourism: Steps Toward Recovery

CLOSING THOUGHTS

It is our belief, as hard as this time is, that most brands should not stay on the sidelines. It’s time to get creative, get practical and help people through this difficult time. That’s what powerful modern brands do. And, that’s what people will remember about you long-term.

Consider these factors when building your plan toward a Recovery Phase:

• One of the results of the shelter in place rules has been on businesses adapting new ways to communicate with employees. The number of travel industry workers negatively impacted by Covid-19 is significant as compared to other industries, with some estimates reaching hundreds of thousands or people. Make sure to continue to stay connected with your current workforce and equally, if not more importantly, with your furloughed staff. The efforts you make in this area will impact your brand culture for years to come.

• Expect air travel to come back slowly, with initial business travel leading the way —though quite possibly at a permanently lower rate. While consumers may be initially spooked by air travel after quarantine lifts, the impact of COVID-19 on air travel will linger in the minds of prospective travelers for some time.

• Lean into local and regional promotions as recovery will most likely come from the regional drive market consisting of visitors traveling smaller distances at first.

• Pay close attention to air service in your market and determine advertising and promotion accordingly. When consumers begin to feel comfortable getting back on airplanes for leisure travel, they will likely gravitate to short-haul travel initially before long-haul traveling responds.

• Be mindful of sales and price promotion strategies. Rate-cutting has long-term impact and the pressure to drive revenue will always be there. The loss of pricing power can contribute to a slow recovery in revenue for travel brands.

• For DMO’s and resorts, consider developing CO-OP programs to engage partner businesses and expand the reach of the campaign.

• Expect a quicker recovery for destinations and activities that feature outside spaces and provide the opportunity for reasonable social distancing.

• Consider adjusting access, pricing and other policies to address possible concerns of initial visitors if you are a business confined by space and time.

• Be mindful of the quality and veracity of the content you choose to run once you go live with paid media. People will evaluate what brands they support based on how they performed and behaved throughout the crisis.

• Be patient with long-haul, international travel. A good signal of recovery for the airline industry and for travel in general will be major air routes such as New York to LA and New York to London returning to pre-pandemic numbers.

Thank You

Find optimism in the long-term outlook, as the joy of travel and its ability to amplify life will help the world recover from the impact of this crisis.

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