“This is going to be the next six months to a year of domestic travel; I don’t care where you are in the world,” said Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association. “Europeans are going to want to stay in Europe. Americans are going to stay in the United States.” Dow was frank about the state of travel amid COVID-19 during his keynote speech at the June 24 What the Future webinar on the future of travel. But he was confident it would recover. “It will come back,” he said. “It’s a matter of how quickly we can bring it back.”
As part of our ongoing What The Future series, Dow and other travel industry leaders and Ipsos experts discussed the near-future patterns, data and consumer behaviors that will shape the recovery of the travel and hospitality sectors.
After Dow’s speech, Oscar Yuan, president of Ipsos Strategy3, talked with Laura Motta, editorial director for The Points Guy. They discussed how loyalty programs matter when business travel is grounded and why cruise bookings are so resilient.
Then Yuan led panel discussion a between Rob Gard, Director, PR & Communications, Destination Madison; Chekitan Dev, Professor, School of Hotel Administration, Cornell SC Johnson College of Business; and Mike Bellmont, SVP, US Senior Client Officer, Ipsos. Their discussion spanned local destination travel, hotel safety and providing personal service while keeping a distance. See the on-demand recording here.