The year 2009 witnessed the worst ever economic crisis since “The great depression” back in 1930s. Millions lost their jobs and literally speaking almost every other industry got a feel of the economic crunch either directly or indirectly. The travel industry was no exception. But my question here is how much collateral damage did it do to the travel and tourism industry? Although the World Tourism Organization revealed that the global tourism showed a decline of 8 % in the first quarter of 2009. This trend was further intensified by the outbreak of H1N1 influenza and global terrorism. But in spite of all this, the ground reality is that people are still travelling. A research launched by World Travel and Tourism Council(WTTC) forecasts average growth rate of 4.4% annually between 2009 and 2018 paving way for 298 million jobs. So does this exemplify that travel industry is “recession proof”? Well, there is still some time left before coming to a definite conclusion but one thing is sure that travel industry has suffered “moderately” as compared to other sectors or has fared off better than expected.
Meanwhile the growth forecast for 2009-10 being pretty much the same of the previous year, the question now is what drives people to travel even in times of economic turbulence? A travel analyst from a mainstream travel company said,” No matter how worse the economy gets, holiday is the last thing people want to put off. Everybody wants a little time off with his/her family, so that makes a holiday an important event in their calendar. So they are not comfortable with the idea of putting it off.” Now, if we look from an overall perspective, the recession effect on world tourism varied in respect to geographical markets. The first world countries and their European counterparts which were the worst sufferers, reported a decline in outbound travellers but increase in inbound travellers. And the spending habit of tourist from these countries is changing dramatically as they are willing to spend less which gave rise to the latest hot trend “budget travelling”. In a striking contrast, visitors from countries like China, India and the Middle East are opting for more international travel and at the same time these markets are now fast proving to be next holiday destinations due to their lucrative “budget travel “packages. So, clearly the market trends are now shifting from west to east. So here is some information regarding what will drive the future trends in international tourism market in 2010.
The Aviation industry-In 2008 many airlines went bankrupt and others were forced to take bankruptcy protection. Others had to shut down on their operations. As a result many small and big airlines are merging together to form a strong, cohesive body to tackle the economic crunch. As a result various perks are being offered to lure the travellers, especially the ones on business tours.
The Hospitality industry- Intense market rivalry has lead to business to business relationships offering value added services to the customers. Increasing partnerships between airlines and hotel industries has ensured that customers can enjoy their trip without much hassle and that too at much lower costs. Hotels are providing packages that include a free second night stay, free dinner or indulging the customer into leisure activities such as spa, sightseeing, etc as value added services.
Budget travel- Call it a latest travel trend or whatever but this thing is surely clicking. People are travelling for shorter durations and are widening their horizons by travelling to lesser known places. A lot more people are now travelling to Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Hotels in these countries can offer good basic amenities and that too at extremely low prices.
Travel for a reason- Apart from just travelling, people are more into exploration and are interested in educative travelling. The trend of backpacking will be more intensified in the coming years. Countries in south East Asia and Middle East is quenching the thirst of spiritual travellers. People are behaving more responsible citizens and are opting for eco travel or the national wildlife sanctuaries.
E commerce –It doesn’t get simpler. The only thing one has to do is search online the cheapest flights and hotels and reserves them. It’s a very convenient and cost effective way as most of the online reservation systems these days are directly owned by the airlines or hotels themselves providing the best offers. And with new smart phones which are more like star wars gadget, mobiles are the latest trend setters in travel industry. Travel updates, reservations, boarding pass, tracking flights etc are all in one single handset.
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02.10.10
one word for the post, i.e Impressive. Nice job mate, it was really helpful to me.Thanks.