Covid-19 And Tourism Industry: 7 Ways To Cope With The Situation
May 27, 2021
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Ever since the Covid-19 outbreak, the businesses have been affected the most. The travel industry is, no doubt, one of those most affected industries. In 2020, the world went under lockdown and the whole travel scenario turned upside down. The airlines, travel agencies and the hotels witnessed the hardest of the times. Once this period of stagnation was over, the businesses started their journey to recover from all the losses. However, the second wave of the pandemic is again making the picture difficult for the industry. Most of the countries are again imposing lockdown in their states and putting restrictions on travel. This Covid surge is an unavoidable reality and the tourism must adopt some strategies to handle the whole situation. Here are some of the ways through which tourism industry can cope with the whole Covid upsurge:
Sharing security measures:
The COVID pandemic has brought vast changes in almost every industry, and especially in case of travel and hospitality. Sanitization and cleanliness has become a crucial part and a daily activity for all of us. Hotels and other accommodation facilities are also taking care of extra safety measures to make sure that their guests and staff remain safe. They are implementing new technologies to avoid physical contact and deep cleaning to make the place safer for everyone. However, it is important to share such information about safety measures with the travellers. The travellers are concerned about their safety more than ever. They want to know every detail about the prevention plans and want to ensure that the plans are being followed effectively. Sharing the details can help you gain the trust of the customers and, hence, attracting them to your services.
Focusing on customer service:
Customer service has always been the priority in the hospitality industry. In these times, giving proper customer service and support has become more critical. The brands should focus more on spreading brand awareness and brand loyalty. They should engage themselves in answering the queries of their customers and focus on ensuring customer satisfaction so that the customers repurchase the services. Customers might look for personalized experiences and the agencies should try their best to provide the customers superior quality experience. Providing them customized purchase offers is a good way to generate more customers. The facilities must also be flexible with the booking and cancellation policy. This way, they can earn the loyalty of the customers more easily.
Transmitting critical information:
Apart from the information related to the safety measures, there is several other critical information a traveller must know before travelling to their destination. Every country, every state and every region now has separate kinds of rules and regulations to deal with the coronavirus. So, it is essential that the hotels or agencies educate the travellers about the guidelines. The agencies should use their websites and social media pages for this purpose. The websites should have a separate section on the Covid-19 so that the customers get to know about all the information at one place. Every airline is also following a separate set of travel guidelines. The airlines, too, should give all the Covid related information on their websites.
Digitize the customer support:
The travellers around the world are seeking information regarding rescheduling or cancelling their tours. Not only that, they have way more queries regarding the prevention plans and covid regulations at their destinations. The customer support centres of the businesses are flooding with the calls of their customers. To deal with such an overwhelming situation, the travel industry should seek the help of technology. They can digitize their customer care centres using chatbots and Artificial Intelligence (AI). This will enable the businesses to handle all the queries of their customers more efficiently, that too, 24*7.
Connecting with the customers via social media:
Social media is the best platform for travel players to connect with the customers. People love to share their experience over social media platforms. It has been raised during COVID, as waiting time during call has been increased and emails take much time to resolve the query. In such situation, travel companies can connect with their customers over social media and provide a good solution to them. At the same time, businesses can also ask their customers to share their experience on social media. This will increase customer engagement, brand awareness and also can be helpful in lead generation.
Utilizing technology for health and wellness:
Two main things which have become important parts of our lives in the new normal are sanitization and social distancing. Therefore, safety and wellness have become the first priority of the hospitality industry. The airlines and hotels can take the help of the technology to ensure safety in their facilities. AI based sanitization tools can be used to clean the hotel rooms and other areas of the properties seamlessly. This also reduces the usage of manpower and, thus, promotes social distancing. Another way of maintaining social distancing can be using hotel robots in the receptions and house-keeping services. Contactless payment methods are another way which should be adopted by the facilities. This will make the visitors more comfortable in the current situation. Using such technology based services not only ensures safety but also makes it easier for the businesses to run their services post-recession.
Re-evaluating the marketplace:
The Covid has affected the economy drastically and the travel industry has also been a prey to it. However, as different parts of the world are handling the situation differently, the damage is not similar throughout the world. Considering this scenario, the businesses should put an effort to re-evaluate the marketplace to understand and plan the post-recession recovery process. This will also help them to identify the new market and to plan their marketing strategy accordingly. The companies can also use the digital marketing tools to collect and analyze the data in order to identify their customers. Not only that, such data will help them to realize customer behaviour and demand so that the companies put forward right offers which ultimately will accelerate the brand recovery.
The Covid pandemic has forced the hospitality services to take a step back. However, this is not the first time that this industry is facing recession. There have been several other recessions in the past and every time the tourism industry has made its comeback. This time, too, they will recover and all they have to do is to follow the right strategy. If you are looking for a tour package or flight tickets, you can check out the EaseMyTrip website. We offer several tourism services to make your life a bit easier.
Tags: English