Forgive me for being blunt.
I’m all for dreams and hopes, in fact I’ve created a personal lifetime espousing such intangible, yet inspiring, platitudes. I’m an optimist by nature.
And while I haven’t stopped believing that “dreams can come true”, my personal analysis of what’s going on right now, in Australia and around the world, has seen me veer towards facts, logic and pragmatic realism to surmise that the “travel industry” will not resurrect any time soon – at least not as we have known it.
When 43,000 Disney World Florida employees have been placed on mandatory furlough (leave) you know the world is in trouble!
Let me explain.
Travel was the first industry to suffer from COVID-19 outbreak
Travel was the first industry to be hit by the onslaught of this novel coronavirus – COVID-19. While initially we all lamented the necessary border control with China – all facts told us this was the origin and the perpetrators – we were not prepared for the very rapid impact on every other corner of the travel industry.
We were not prepared for Australia and other countries to close international flight routes. We were not prepared for the flow-on effect of airline routes closing, that meant international tour operators were out of business. We were not prepared for the devastatingly horrific impression cruising would leave on the collective psyche, the criminal investigation that has begun into the Ruby Princess, and the passengers and crew stranded on ships including Pacific Explorer, Ovation of the Seas, Artania, and the Greg Mortimer in the Antarctic. We were not prepared for states and territories to seal off their borders from other Australians. We were not prepared for the ‘do not travel’ edict that imposes a minimum $1000 fine on anyone found away from their home without a legitimate reason.
We were not prepared for travellers making it back to our shores from overseas to be placed in mandatory quarantine for 14 days. We were not prepared for a shortage of domestic flights once those quarantined travellers were given the green light to return to their home states and regions.
We were not prepared … and this thing hit us faster than the proverbial speeding bullet.
We were not prepared for the global fallout
Focusing only on the Australian industry for now (but acknowledging the impact on the global travel industry), where do we go next? Airlines are all but grounded. Airline staff have been made redundant. Some are in quarantine and the unions are seeking answers for the ways in which their health may have been compromised while airlines desperately insisted they fly. So many ships crews are floundering on seas that authorities have told them to exit, quick sticks! Cruise ship passengers and independent travellers are rushing to find repatriation flights, or privately funded flights, to get them home, back on Aussie soil.
Hotels in major cities have been given over to mandatory quarantine arrangements for travellers arriving home. Resorts around Australia are closed. Motels, caravan and holiday parks, and private holiday accommodation doors are all firmly shut to all but essential travellers, and the destitute.
Queensland has shut its borders to NSW. Western Australia and Tasmania have shut their borders to the rest of us.
It’s hackneyed but it’s true. These are unprecedented times for the world – and for Australia.
How do we resurrect the industry?
So … how does the Australian travel industry resurrect? And when?
The first thing to acknowledge is that travel will not look the same when it does resurface.
Admitting that to ourselves is a big ask, but a necessary acceptance. It cannot look the same. That’s a fact – and it’s important to understand WHY?
Consider this most likely scenario, given that the government advice at this stage is for the current restrictions to remain in place until the end of May 2020:
- Australia begins to ‘flatten the curve’. This means that the number of people diagnosed with COVID-19 diminishes daily, as the number of deaths equally diminish
- A few restrictions are lifted, carefully and incrementally – perhaps people will be authorised to gather in groups of 5, and this will be monitored against confirmed COVID-19 cases and resultant deaths across a 14-day period. If we hold steady, after 14 days we may be permitted to gather in groups of 10. Again, this will be monitored for a further 14 days against the diagnosis and death data.
- If the figures hold after 2×14-day periods of monitoring, shops may be encouraged to open, provided they limit the number of customers and adhere to social isolation dictates. Cafes and restaurants may be permitted to re-open, following the same social distancing rules. This relaxation of “the rules”, strictly monitored, will determine the next stage of relaxing ‘lockdown’ measures
- Now we are at the end of June 2020, early July 2020. Still no mention of travel
- As the months roll by, and we hold steady with new infections and deaths, more businesses are allowed to re-open, albeit with restrictions.
- We “may” be able to travel within our home state. We may be given permission to holiday within state. No domestic interstate flights yet. That relies on different states and territories controlling the COVID-19 outbreak and deciding to relax border controls and allow interstate travel.
- All of Australia’s states and territories succeed in flattening the curve. Border controls are lifted. The USA, UK, Europe, Middle East, Asian nations are not in such a good place. All or some of them are still recording spikes in infections and high death tolls. The Australian government will decree that we will NOT lift our border controls on travel to and from those countries. For now, we can travel within Australia – and only within Australia
- Qantas, Virgin and Jetstar will begin limited domestic services. They have taken a belting. They are bleeding money, Their staff and crews are on hiatus or terminated. The airlines have to recruit new staff. The airlines have to honour all of the credits on flights they have agreed to, the airlines have to try and fill seats and get new money in for those fares to afford to pay crew, fuel, and every other cost associated with running an airline when you’re in the red
- Psychologically, only the foolhardy and the rich will buy tickets on domestic flights – the hangover fear of airline contamination will deter many; loss of job and income will deter others.
- When we are allowed to holiday within Australia, we will most likely be either part of the jobless on JobSeeker or on JobKeeper, working from home, pausing our mortgages and rents, seeking Hardship arrangements for loans, credit card debt repayments and utilities, drawing down on our superannuation, home schooling our kids. Most of us will have neither the resources nor the inclination to holiday.
- Let’s imagine we are now in September 2020 … spring is coming. We have been under self-isolation restrictions for six months, even as some of those restrictions have been tentatively lifted. We still have JobSeeker and JobKeeper sustenance.
- We are allowed to travel within Australia. Are we heading to hotels that “may” have housed COVID-19 sufferers? Are we taking our families, our children, to resorts, on planes? Are we taking a P&O cruise on a ship we know housed COVID-19 sufferers? NO. We are too scared.
- Are we looking to travel in our home state – to a private holiday home, a holiday park by the beach – travelling in our own car, with our own linen, cutlery, crockery and soap/hand sanitiser? YES!
This is what travel in Australia could possibly look like by September/October 2020. Perhaps later.
The psychological impact on the Australian psyche
Remember … we’re only mere weeks into living like this. What will the psychology look like after three months, six months, longer? When we spend every waking moment in a small nuclear family situation, we become used to that set-up. Early days hurdles soon give way to familiar routines. The longer we self-isolate, the longer we are accustomed to social distancing, the easier it is to become fearful and suspicious of anyone outside our small tribe. When, and if, we are granted a passport to a small order of social freedom, will we embrace it? Perhaps for a split second, and then will we retreat back into the safety of our ‘known’ tribe?
Psychologists are busy right now. They know this is a recognised response to our current ‘lockdown’ situation. They’re ready. But are we?
The mass media, online 24/7 news from around the globe, social media commentary … all of these ‘news’ delivery services have guaranteed that no one is in the dark about the global COVID-19 situation. Conspiracy theorists and social paranoia, including ‘fake news’ have ensured that many, many people are living in fear and terror of the Brave New World that seems determined to arrive. Whether you subscribe to such extreme thoughts or not, the fact remains that when a majority live in fear, travel is NOT going to be on the radar, even when it is sanctioned by authorities.
We’re human beings. This is how we respond.
The Ruby Princess, the Diamond Princess … every other cruise ship you can think of … has changed the occasional ‘norovirus’ outbreak at sea into a catastrophe of huge proportions in the minds of many people. Now, cruising is associated with ‘incubation’ of disease to a far greater degree than ever blipped on a radar before COVID-19. Now we are talking mass infections, far too many deaths, and ships who we now know are registered in countries like the Bahamas, Panama, Malta and Liberia to avoid taxes, asking for assistance from countries who are turning them away, with sick passengers and crew to sail aimlessly, waiting for alms.
Holidays in Australia
Will we be encouraged to go Christmas shopping en masse in December 2020? To congregate and celebrate Christmas in December 2020. To kick up our heels and ring in the New Year on 31 December 2020? To gather in our hundreds and thousands for Australia Day on 26 January 2021?
Unlikely.
What will the UK look like by December 2020? Will the country have eradicated the scourge of COVID-19? What about Europe? Asia? Will Indonesia manage the anticipated escalation of infections with its limited health system? Vietnam? Cambodia? Thailand?
What about our Pacific neighbours? How will Fiji, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Samoa be looking in December 2020?
The USA? Outstripping the rest of the world currently in infections and deaths, with 50 states and one state – New York – responsible for over 50% of all infections and casualties. They have a long way to go.
Will Australia open its borders to other countries when we have flattened the curve?
Unlikely.
Will cruise ships home port on our shores and take Aussies on a cruise of a lifetime? Unlikely.
The best case scenario for the Australian travel industry in the next 8 months will be holidays at home.
Prepare now for clients who want to holiday in Australia
Aussie travel agents who turn their focus now to Aussie holidays will be ahead of the game.
Pre- 1980 most Aussie holidays were domestic and, largely, to the same place year after year. We didn’t travel in masses overseas. We packed the car and the kids and headed off to a familiar spot in our state or in a neighbouring state. We had caravans, we camped, we leased the same holiday home every year.
This is the face of the Australian travel industry in 2020 and into 2021.
These are the facts.
And, yes, we can dream and hope for the return of international travel but, pragmatically, logically, factually, we need to focus on this continent – our Great Southern Land – as providing the travel and holiday opportunities for Aussies.
For the foreseeable future. Until we have a vaccine. Until we have herd immunity. Until the rest of the world controls the virus outbreak.
Australian travel is the future of the Australian travel industry.
