Overnight Catastrophe:
Covid-19 has caused unprecedented and catastrophic disruption in our economy and no industry has been spared.
Some of the most negatively impacted industries are the travel and hospitality sectors.
As people are sheltering in place and staying at home, individuals and businesses have adapted to the new normal of working from home, limiting all non-essential travel, doing zoom calls instead of in person meetings and forgoing conferences and tradeshows.
This new way of doing business from home has really shifted the way companies view their travel budgets for everything from in person business meetings for deal closing to attendance at trade shows for new business development.
Alternatively for the casual traveler, the fear of contracting Covid combined with a hit to their income has caused them to delay their holiday travel plans indefinitely until a vaccine for Covid has been found and more probably until the vaccine is widely available globally.
What does this mean for airlines, hotels, resorts, amusement parks, trade shows, conferences, rideshare (Uber/Lyft) and other startups and businesses who’s success rests solely on individuals, families and businesses desire to travel.
Many companies in this arena will fail, if they haven’t failed already; especially if they fail to adapt, pivot and change to the new behaviors and preferences of their customer in our post-Covid world.
Key to Success:
The key to success for travel related startups will be how well they are able to innovate and create relevant and engaging Customer Experiences that draws in their audience by addressing their new behaviors and preferences and differentiating themselves from the competition.
By creating a product or service that their customers love engaging with, travel related startups will be able to soar above their competition and succeed.
It can be as simple as setting the right mood by providing great personalized music during Uber rides or as complex as leveraging AI, VR and holographic projection technology to create immersive simulation experiences for virtual travel like in Total Recall or on Star Trek’s Holodeck. The sky’s the limit!
