Revenge Travel Is Here: Three Ways Digital CX Can Help Recovery

Postponed vacations, cancelled flights and less-than-satisfied travelers just about sum up the past year and a half. It’s indisputable that the travel industry took a major hit in 2020, as the entire world shut down before our eyes. In fact, domestic travel spending went down by 42% year-over-year, along with international travel dipping by 76%.

After patiently waiting more than a year, people are itching to leave their homes and vacation again. Based on a recent Vrbo study, 65% of Americans plan on traveling more in 2021 than they did pre-COVID. Whether consumers are rescheduling long-awaited family reunions or planning their comeback dream vacation, airline and hospitality brands must prepare themselves for a surge of the travel bug, also known as revenge travel.

As the world reopens, people are ready to explore

Aside from the immediate loss of industry jobs and revenue that occurred during lockdown, the long-term effects of the pandemic on many businesses are bubbling to the surface. According to McKinsey, the world experienced three to four years of digital transformation in the past year, and those changes are here to stay.

For the travel industry, this means being hit with a wave of new consumer expectations for check-ins, questions answered and trip changes - without having to talk to anyone. Brands that can provide this experience will ride this wave to success.

A recent survey by SuperOffice discovered that 45.9% of business professionals said that customer experience is the number-one priority for their brand throughout the next five years. But there is still plenty of work to be done. In fact, businesses underestimate how often customers have poor experiences by an average of 38%. In order to prepare for revenge travel and secure long-term brand loyalty, we recommend the following digital CX implementations:

1. Facilitate omnichannel communication
A vital component of digital CX is allowing customers to interact with a brand across multiple platforms. Given the current climate, travel companies will face a flood of incoming questions and concerns from apprehensive travelers. Thus, brands must equip customer care agents with digital resources that will aid in successful omnichannel communication, which can help decrease response times, increase the volume of requests handled and capture consumer trust.