Post-COVID World For Hospitality

Insights from “Plug and Play Travel Focus Week” Virtual Conference

On April 20-21, 2020, SensorFlow joined in a two-day virtual conference organised by Plug and Play Travel APAC, discussing featured topics such as investment trends and insights on the current state of the travel industry in the Asia Pacific. Hospitality leaders and investors across the region were invited to speak about the massive impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on the industry, as well as their predictions of future hospitality trends and measures that then resulted from the global pandemic. 

An interesting key point being discussed was how hotels and travel businesses, amid this crisis, are now looking forward to the post-COVID world of travel, where tourism and the travel economy starts to pick up again. While the current state of the industry may be at a standstill, hotel leaders are already anticipating new travel norms and significant pattern changes in the post-COVID world of travel.

Below are three key insights SensorFlow has gathered from the session that might help hotels to prepare and brace for the future post-COVID:

Drastic Change in Travel & Hospitality Best Practices

As the pandemic shifts the focus of consumers and regulatory bodies towards more preventative measures of health and hygiene, it has been predicted that there will be a drastic increase in expectations on travel and hospitality best practices globally and regionally including:

1. More stringent health checks at the airport, which can lead to the extension of pre-flight minimum time
   
   
2. Stricter evaluation on hotels’ cleanliness, increasing operational standards for more meticulous housekeeping and quality control strategies
   
   
3. The development of new international guidelines on industry best practices within hotels and airports, which regional businesses can then refer to and further localise to their own regional standards
   
   
4. Higher levels of technology adoption to reinforce best practices of customer-facing processes, foreshadowing new growth opportunities of no-touch technology, such as a voice-activated system.
   
   

Gradual Shifts in Travel Patterns

With some countries starting to see an ease of distancing measures, usual travel patterns are expected to recover, but at a slower and gradual pace.

1. Instead of anticipating an all-borders-open situation, the travel industry is expecting a gradual recovery of flight and travel activities.
   
   
2. Domestic travel would be the most immediate trend visible. While Thailand is predicted to be leading the movement, Indonesia is expected to fall further behind due to the fact that air travel accounts for a major portion of their domestic travels.
   
   
3. As travel demand will still remain curbed by the gradual lifts of travel restriction, hotels are expected to continue to market for staycation packages.
   
   

Hotels’ Outlook and Priority

As a natural response to the high level of uncertainties of the present and future state of the travel sector, hotels are intuitively taking a more cautious approach. As a result, there are notable changes in hotels’ priorities and outlook on growth, which include:

1. Increasing reliance on existing relationships for sourcing of suppliers and vendors
   
   
2. Higher emphasis on the conservation and optimisation of energy and resources, leading to more active exploration of cost-saving solutions
   
   
3. Greater attention to repurposing and realigning business activities towards their vision and mission
   
   

The Need for Cost-efficient Solution

In summary, these insights point to the pressing need for a cost-efficient and highly accessible solution to meet future operational standards in the hospitality industry. With SensorFlow’s smart building management solution, hotels are able to address that need and better brace for the post-COVID world of travel. Our wireless retrofit solution helps hotels improve energy efficiency, optimise productivity and enhance sustainability by offering an IoT and AI-driven automation and productivity tool that is available to all at zero upfront cost.

For more travel and sustainability insights, check out Plug and Play’s blogs:

• Plug and Play – APAC 
• Plug and Play – Travel
• Plug and Play – Sustainability