The bounce back in travel in the wake of Covid-19 has been so strong that certain regions in the hospitality sector are now seeing better financial returns than in the year of 2019.
Speaking at the International Hospitality Investment Forum (IHIF) in Berlin, Hilton CEO Christopher Nassetta said in the US, 95% of the hotelier’s guests were already domestic travellers before the pandemic struck.
This meant that hotels in the country not only saw guest numbers quickly return to normal as restrictions eased, but have been further boosted by the fact that many barriers to foreign travel still remain sop encouraging even more people to consider a domestic break.
Nassetta said: “What we’ve seen in the US and we’ve seen in Asia and Europe is a lot of people can’t or don’t want to go through the hassle of leaving [their country] and quarantining [on their return].
“Business that was 95% domestic is now 99% or nearly 100%. In the US specifically … we have the highest RevPARs (Revenue per available room) we’ve ever had – higher than the peaks in 2019.”
However, he admitted while much of the recovery is currently being driven by leisure travellers, Nassetta added both group travel and events will take longer to recover.
“If people feel safe and secure then you see a very rapid recovery,” Nassetta added.
KLM CEO Pieter Elbers agreed the airline was seeing the roots of a strong recovery despite shutting down all operations to 80 countries in 2020.
He said the airline is now operating its network at 95% of its pre-Covid-19 destinations with the number of flights at up to 75%, while customer numbers are currently half of those in the pre-pandemic days.
“The industry will come back and therefore we believe getting the network back and giving our customers the opportunity to fly in safety is really important to us,” he added.
Elbers added on the long-haul front, the Europe-US market remains the busiest with Asia still catching up as many countries, such as China, are still imposing travel restrictions.
He agreed much of the return to flying is being driven by the leisure market, but added SMEs were also playing an important role in driving business travel as their business models tend to rely on more personal relationships between suppliers or customers and so depend more on face-to-face meetings.
Nassetta also argued that global bodies such as the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) have an important part to play in driving the recovery thanks to their reach which transcends national borders.
Nassetta said: “Vaccinations are the best way out and provide us the best opportunity as an industry to get through this. It is really important as an industry that we support the WTTC as we need the harmonisation of a standard [procedure].
“It we don’t work together well, it is just going to take longer.”