Coronavirus Won’t Kill Leisure Or Business Travel, But It Will Change Them Significantly, Perhaps Forever
While major U.S. airlines and the Treasury Department haggled ferociously in recent days over how much of the taxpayers' money will be given to the carriers vs. how much would be loaned to them instead, no one doubts that demand for air travel, now down by as much as 95% percent from a year ago, will come back once the COVID-19 threat subsides.
The real questions, therefore, are:
- How much travel demand will come back?
- When will it return to its pre-virus levels?
- Will demand patterns, including the split between business and leisure travel demand, be different than before?
- How will the entire travel experience, from shopping for services to the quality of services delivered, be different?
The answers are all interlaced because all the factors that figure into the formation of demand - price, capacity, and the perceived value of the various aspects of the travel experience -are all highly variable as well as intricately intertwined and interdependent. But one thing, though is for sure. Travel demand will return.
