You’ve just psychologically crawled through a long dark ditch full of cow muck. When you come back, Ant Middleton is going to throw you over a waterfall by the chin straps.
Happy New Year, by the way.
If 2020 was a write-off, 2021 doesn’t look like it will be any easier – at least in the short term.
The travel industry still has a nasty case of long Covid. Each step forward has been closely followed by a step back, as if Chris Whitty were dancing the cha-cha. Incidentally, he’s surely a shoo-in for Strictly… 2021.
There’s no doubt the vaccine news was a hugely positive step forward. From a practical point of view, though, it is unclear how it will benefit the travel sector in the near-term.
Vaccines treat the symptoms but we don’t know yet whether they prevent the spread of Covid. That’s great news for looking a?fter the vulnerable and preventing unnecessary deaths.
However, it could do little to reduce the risk on a host destination.
Until we have enough people vaccinated, and a universally accepted means of proof, it is hard to see vaccines opening up the borders just yet. Rolling out vaccines on such a scale has never been tried before.
The UK’s most vulnerable citizens and frontline key workers total around 17 million people. Even if you were to overlook our government’s logistical missteps of the last 12 months, from track and trace to PPE, it’s unlikely to be a quick or easy process.
That’s before you factor in a shower of anti-vaxxers out there, some of whom are convinced Bill Gates is planting microchips in our pensioners.
With 250 different vaccines in various stages of testing and production around the world, we also need a universal certification procedure. But that will require international cooperation on a level which has been sadly lacking over the last year.
For the foreseeable future, an effective airport testing framework seems a much faster route to travelling again. We need to redouble our lobbying efforts for a more coordinated government approach, though.
The vaccine cavalry coming over the hill must not be used as a convenient excuse to save money on building testing infrastructure.
For most travel companies, dealing with the pandemic and its related consequences will determine the agenda for most of 2021.
The damage done to balance sheets and relationships throughout the supply chain will take a long time to repair. The changes in customer needs and booking patterns will take time to understand. The fundamental infrastructure on which our industry is built is in a state of flux.
The way we advertise holidays, take payments, protect customers and pay suppliers is changing.
Well done for making it this far. Now the hard work starts.
Martin Alcock is a director at The Travel Trade Consultancy
