After a difficult 2020 and the second COVID-19 wave this year, now vaccination drive has gathered momentum. Moreover, the travel business is showing signs of sustained resumption this time.
In such a scenario, the survey throws up certain interesting insights on the future of the travel industry. TravClan, one of the fastest-growing B2B travel platforms recently conducted a survey on close to 250 small to mid-range travel agents and consumers across India to identify post-pandemic changes in the travel business ecosystem and the behaviour of the Indian traveller.
About 83 per cent of the agents surveyed have catered to first-time customers (those who never used travel agents’ services before). This is a key indicator of how an increasing number of travellers are now turning towards travel agents and trip planners. Compared to large OTAs and marketplaces, travel agencies are being preferred as the need for personalization, and real-time connectivity has increased significantly in the post-pandemic times.
The survey also revealed the fact that, unlike the perception that the younger people travel more, the travel agents are anticipating over 75 per cent of the holidaymakers in the near future to be in the 30 to 50 years of age group. This indicates more likelihood of couple and family travels’ share increasing in the market. There is also a greater rise in the segment of people willing to spend more to get better services and experiences compared to budget-conscious travellers.
Speaking about this, Arun Bagaria, co-founder, TravClan said, “The global tourism industry has endured a major existential challenge and is now confidently overcoming this on the basis of knowledge gained during the last one year. The streamlining of processes and progress of vaccination programs is likely to result in a strong recovery in the market within the next 6 months or so. We have been able to generate a number of highly impactful insights into the travel industry’s operations.”
The buoyancy about post-pandemic travel demand is making even those agents re-enter the world of tourism who had earlier shut shop fearing the collapse of the global travel business. In fact, the survey reveals that most of the travel agents believe that travel operations will resume faster than expected earlier and international travel is also expected to resume in several major markets by October 2021 with several countries like the Maldives, Thailand already announcing phased re-opening.
The survey also brings out the change in the approach towards travel and the reasons behind travelling. Leisure travel and shorter weekend trips have become more popular. Travel agents have also been servicing the demand for workcations and staycations that emerged during the pandemic.
Adding further, Arun Bagaria, said, “Travel agents are evolving to serve the needs of the future travellers by building trust and high-quality service at a time when travel regulations are changing frequently. The travel agents who traditionally functioned offline are also now rapidly adopting the new technologies and becoming travel planners and actively carrying out marketing activities on social media.”
A lot of uncertainty has gripped the travel sector during the pandemic due to the constantly changing operational scenario, restrictions on certain services, destinations and customer concerns. However, travel agents are now evolving into new agent travel entrepreneurs and rediscovering themselves to meet the demands of the traveller!
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