Reassurance and communication is the key
The prolonged pandemic has hit the hospitality sector intensely and after nearly coming to complete a year, the industry is positive that the vaccine announcement will give a sigh of relief. Until then the industry needs to strengthen its preparedness to welcome travellers back safely, seamlessly, and importantly communicating and reassuring guests.
With the threat of COVID waves still in progress, it mostly depends on the government as to how it will look at lockdowns and the bans on international flights. In such conditions, normalcy and recovery in the hospitality sector like other industries will depend on the timeline of the vaccination being launched. However, some recovery in terms of hotel bookings and weddings is already being witnessed due to domestic movements and social events.
“The announcement of a vaccine will bring in the real ‘normalcy’ for the hospitality industry. The travellers will be more confident in travelling with the fear of COVID-19 gradually disappearing. It will also give a boost to corporate travel and MICE events where all the pending projects will restart leading to an upsurge in business,” opines Ravi Rai, Cluster General Manager, Novotel Visakhapatnam Varun Beach, Novotel Vijayawada Varun, and The Bheemili Resort Managed by Accor.
Ravi continues, “The reassurance will only happen when there is a vaccine in hand otherwise the lifestyle of the guests will continue to be according to the ‘New Normal’ that is based on safe travel, safe stay with stringent hygiene measures. Positively, people in Andhra Pradesh where our hotel is located are stepping out in good numbers taking the required precautions like wearing a mask, maintaining social distancing and sanitising on intervals.”
The hospitality business is already starting to see signs of recovery. Now, most are looking at possible recovery around late Q3 2021 or early Q4 2021. “Announcement of a vaccine is definitely a positive sign for our industry; however, the actual benefit would only be seen once the vaccine reaches the majority of the population. Till then strict measures that have been introduced to curb the impact of COVID-19 must be followed under all circumstances.
Companies should not compromise on passenger safety in lieu of higher revenues. The current focus is to ensure that people are able to travel in a safe and secure environment,” states Gaurav Sinha, Director of Operations JW Marriott Hotel Bengaluru.
For Ravi, technology is the key driver that has somewhere helped the hospitality industry to bounce back strongly during this uncertain pandemic and he feels more investments will be needed in
providing services like a contactless punch in and punch out, temperature check at the entrance and exit for the staff & guests, QR code base declaration forms, contactless elevator access, contactless menu, contactless payments and more.
Regarding the role of technology during the strong presence of COVID-19, Gaurav shares, “Technology has changed the way we operate. Hotels have shifted their focus to ensure a lower level of contact and encourage ‘touchfree’ methods of operation and products. While companies and the government work to eventually eradicate COVID-19, the virus has left us with a strong focus on hygiene and safety. Technology investments for the industry must not only focus on contactless experiences but also lay importance to safety infrastructure to ensure effective sanitisation and cleaning.”
Speaking of technology, RateGain is one of the travel technology company powering every segment of the travel and hospitality industry with real-time intelligence, connectivity to the largest demand and supply network as well as targeted digital marketing solutions. Kamesh Shukla, EVP, and Head for APMEARateGain observes that with the COVID -19 threat still alive, one has to communicate authentic and updated content around safety and hygiene on social media, brand site, and online channels, and should be centred around the ‘NEW’ guest (or the evolved consumer) which would build long term trust and confidence.
“It’s hard to know when the pandemic will be over, but it’s possible to start pivoting a hotel’s operations and outreach to be prepared for that inevitable eventuality. The new guest or the evolved traveller will expect to have consistent and positive service, limited physical interactions and enhanced digital experiences at any hotel,” tells Kamesh. According to him, the focuses on three key investments which will help hotels win more bookings from post-pandemic travellers are:
Cognitive revenue management: It is how a digital revenue management tool helps hotels optimise pricing in a dynamic market. One needs to improve competitive intelligence and use booking data to show the guest they know and can anticipate their needs.
Smart distribution: is how brands collaborates with a channel manager to simplify room distribution. Here, one has to improve discovery with OTAs and other new channels.
Targeted social media: is how the brand is listening to customers on Facebook and other online platforms. Hotels need to share safety measures transparently and build brand reputation using customer reviews and other usergenerated content.
Thus, by focusing on the digital experience, a hotel can drive revenue and increase brand trust with the first post-pandemic travellers. Further, Kamesh shares, “One has to continue to update safety precautions to promote being responsible even after recovery or during an air bubbles operation or post the markets re-opening, to win long term trust.
Hospitality Marketers and Commercial teams need to be open to reshape the marketing strategies and reimaging what the future of travel could look like.
While it is the best time to try out new digital, social and online channels, one can also opt for social media marketing agencies and experiment with targeted creative content on digital or social media. It’s equally important to keep the messaging authentic, updated, aligned with the brand ethos and cantered around the ‘NEW’ guest (or the evolved consumer), to stay more relevant in the Better Tomorrow.”
The impact on the travel industry has been tremendous since the outbreak with several organisations struggling to achieve operating profit and hence their sustainability becomes a serious concern. “As an aid in the recovery of the industry, a direct benefit must be passed on to the end-user as well as businesses operating in the industry. Several bodies such as CII & FHRAI have already sought government intervention and requested for zerorating GST for MICE, reduction in fees of e-visas, etc,’’ indicates Gaurav.
On his part, Ravi shares a few tips that can revive the Travel and the Hospitality Industry going forwardnamely:
• • • • • •
Concession in Maximum Demand charges like in electricity.
Waiver of interest fees during lockdowns.
To ease out the travel restrictions keeping the safety protocols intact.
To safeguard the economic livelihood of the Industry –Statebacked financial support by lending low-interest loans to the tourism sector.
Waiving off license fee and property tax.
State-backed promotional campaign for domestic and international travel.
The biggest challenge for Kerala Tourism is to keep the tourism industry afloat in the midst of this gigantic COVID-19 crisis. They are on the lookout to initiate measures that would reduce joblessness in the industry and also bolster the morale of all the stakeholders after the pandemic-induced restrictions are lifted one after another.
When COVID-19 began spreading its tentacles, the first priority of the government was to repatriate all the stranded tourists in Kerala. The four international airports in the state were used to send them to their homelands via special flights. Immediately after relocating the tourists, the state started working on a relief and rehabilitation package. Bala says, “The state government announced a `465-crore package under the Chief Minister’s ‘Tourism Loan Assistance Scheme’ for the tourism industry. Of which, an amount of `100 crores have been earmarked for the ‘Employee Loan Assistance Scheme’ wherein all the employees of the tourism industry in both the organised and unorganised sectors could get loans up to `30,000, which has to be repaid as monthly installments at a nominal interest rate of three per cent while the six per cent interest will be paid by the government.”
Also, `355-crore ‘Working Capital Assistance Scheme’ will allow all the tourism industry units to avail loans ranging from `100,000 to `2500000. In the first year
their
and a half, interest amount up to a maximum of 4.5 per cent will be borne by the state tourism department. This has brought a lot of relief to the tourism industry. Also, a financial package ranging from `80,000 to `120,000 has been announced for all the houseboats for their restoration and annual maintenance. In addition, all the guides are given a one-time payment of `10,000.
Kerala had announced its New Tourism Policy in 2017, which envisaged a doubling of international tourist arrivals in the next five years while the domestic tourist arrivals were to be increased by 50 per cent. “We have made excellent progress till 2019 when we recorded the highest number of tourist arrivals in the last 24 years. The tourism policy clearly charts out the principles of responsible tourism in all our endeavours. As far as the new National Tourism Policy is concerned, we are following all its directions while keeping the right spirit of our own policy of 2017,” mention Bala.
From October 10, 2020, 114 tourism destinations in Kerala started opening in phases and till November 1, all the destinations have been opened. As international flights are yet to kick off in a regular manner, domestic tourism is the way to go. Kerala Tourism also realised this and is making all-out efforts to promote domestic tourism. They have already started a new video campaign, ‘Change of Air’, to give a fillip to domestic tourism. This advertisement campaign, which seeks to put to an end all the inhibitions of a tourist while in Kerala, has triggered huge interest among both the industry and the people alike. The campaign seeks to increase domestic tourist footfalls. It’s in the first phase.
They will be evaluating the results and do a campaign again in the coming months.
To attract tourists once international travel resumes, Bala tells, “There are two important things. One is the urge to travel which is being addressed through our campaign. But the second important component is the COVID-19 safety protocols which are to be followed by the international tourists once they start trickling in. We have already come up with the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for hotels, transport operators, homestays, ayurvedic centres, and resorts. These are being strictly followed across the state. This is the confidence we want to generate when international tourists also start to arrive. We hope the international tourists will also start arriving very soon and, hopefully, the tourism sector too will be back on its feet.”
According to Bala, there have been some important travel trends which they have noted over the last five years and shall use them to their advantage. Thus, they have been able to consolidate their source markets of Western Europe. At the same time, they also generate enough interest in the emerging tourism markets like West Asia and South East Asia. Coming to the domestic sector, they have made strong inroads in the metros as the source markets, including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai. New markets are also emerging from states like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Telangana.
“2020 has been the worst year ever for tourism. 2021 is the year of hope. Now the only direction to go is up and up. We believe the vaccine will be administered very soon to people across the globe. This will hugely help in relaxing the travel restrictions and making travel a normal activity. We are also aware that the growth will be slow but steady as there is also a lot of urge among the tourists to travel. We believe the tourism industry is also geared up to welcome them. We have reasons to believe that 2021 will be a good year for Kerala considering the tourist arrivals,” concludes Bala.