Most people don’t wish to travel

To get a pulse of the current sentiment with a cross section of society, Right Clique Hospitality conducted a survey, with over 80 per cent of the respondents being in the 25-44 age group.

While some of the key concerns of people about travel, as expected, were being at crowded airports/railway stations and being in a confined environment with strangers, DeNiese lists some other revelations the survey brought about.

It was also found that 86% of the respondents would wear a face mask in future to travel and 45% would be upset if others didn’t.

Just 23% felt they would continue with their existing hotel choices while more than half would be taking a closer look at which hotels they are booking henceforth.

There seems to be some hope for restaurants, with 46% still finding it alright to dine out with social distancing in place, while 31% will stick to home food for now. About 23% of the respondents were undecided.

The million-dollar question, of course, of when would the recovery be had the respondents divided with 42% saying it would take a year at least and 42.3% expecting it to recover in two quarters. An optimistic 11.4% expects it to recover as fast as it slowed down.

“In conclusion, I’d like to say that we are all going to have to be brave, face the storm and make some sacrifices for the future of our industry. It’s a time when we will need to lean on each other to stay on our feet. The government taking not just cognisance of the critical care required for tourism both for the short as well as long term, but action as well is the need of the hour. We are going to honestly get used to living with the virus since cures, vaccines, etc., are just not something we should be banking on. Having said that, this will bring in a new era in operating procedures for all of us across the travel fraternity and we must adapt, be prudent and transparent to get through this process. And we are, and will always be resilient,” he concludes.