How China, Singapore, Thailand and Japan are rebooting tourism, as luxury brands like LVMH’s Belmond look to online options to engage guests for post-Covid-19 travel
While governments are encouraging domestic travel, resorts like Chiva-Som in Thailand are offering virtual online experiences to maintain their brand presence and engage with potential guests for a post-pandemic travel bounce back – but can a virtual holiday really cure your cabin fever?
Of all the industries that are suffering at the moment, perhaps none is feeling the pinch quite so profoundly as travel and tourism. No one is going anywhere – and even if they were, negotiating airports and planes, confining yourself in a big hotel with lots of other people, riding lifts and eating from breakfast buffets isn’t many people’s idea of fun right now.
Airlines without customers and hotel groups with empty properties and unemployed staff, are desperate to reopen for business. Governments, meanwhile, are struggling to balance public health and economic well-being. According to the World Tourism Organisation, by the end of July, 40 per cent of destinations worldwide had eased their international tourism restrictions; the problem is that the easing of restrictions often results in a rise in cases, forcing them to be reintroduced.
As a result, the World Travel & Tourism Council predicts anywhere between about 100 and 200 million job losses globally, depending on the severity and duration of travel restrictions, with up to two thirds falling in Asia; the global unemployment rate has already risen by more than two per cent just from job losses in the travel and tourism industry.
Airlines, unsurprisingly, have been among the hardest hit: Cathay Pacific said a few weeks ago that it expected to make a HK$9.9 billion (US$1.28 billion) loss during the first half of 2020; in Japan, All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines recently reported quarterly net losses of US$1.02 billion and US$1.24 billion respectively; while China’s aviation industry lost 34.25 billion yuan (US$5 billion) in the second quarter, according to official figures.
There are some green shoots of recovery, though, with many hoping that a rebounding domestic market in China can provide a template for other countries. Already the number of domestic flights in the country is back to 80 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China.
The recovery has been spurred by official measures such as the government’s decision in July to allow the resumption of travel between different provinces, provided they are low risk, for people with green health QR codes; and by the introduction by at least eight airlines – including China Southern and China Eastern – of bargain-priced passes allowing passengers unlimited domestic travel within a given period.
