A time of renewal

In a historic address to the nation on Monday, the President of France Emmanuel Macron highlighted the importance of knowing how to renew oneself in the face of the changing realities of the world. In his explanation to the French people and the international community in general, he addressed the mistakes we have made, and the inefficiencies we had tolerated and how we needed to use this time wisely to correct these, to be able to evolve into a cleaner and better world. 

Nowhere is this reality greater than in the travel and tourism industry, the greatest victim of the international travel bans and closure of airspace. In business, when the market is great, it’s a good time to engage in commerce and business generation. When the market is terrible (as most will agree it is now) it’s a good time to support each other and build for a brighter future. It is regrettable we have had to wait for such a disaster to wake up to reality.

Whether their properties are presently closed or operating at single-digit occupancy, hoteliers, in particular, will want to use this downtime to review and improve their online and revenue management strategies – eliminating expensive and inefficient channels that merely appear to work by filling beds, but at the cost of ADR and RevPAR, when it should be the other way round. At trillions of dollars lost across the industry in this crisis, such mistakes would now mean its complete collapse. Smarter and more effective tools such as the blockchain and tokenization will be the key for when demand picks up again, hopefully soon.

At Tratok, we predict that local leisure and business travel will be the first to return in the transient segment of guests. Hoteliers should focus on keeping their communities engaged, continuously communicating with negotiated accounts and nurturing domestic business travel relationships. When travel bans are released, tourist arrivals will rebound, and hoteliers will have opportunities to attract new guests from new markets.