Global tourism recovery assumptions
Four main friction forces have been identified as having a determining role in the realization of the recovery assumptions:
- The economic situation of households and businesses
- The consumer's perception of the health situation.
- International cooperation: COVID-19 tests and mutually recognized vaccination certificates
- The quality of technological experience, which reduces short-term travel needs for the corporate and affinity travel segments, and has potential to cap long-term demand for the tourism segment
Order of recovery expected by market segments at the global level: Specialized market segments such as sailors, offshore, military and workers will be the first ones to restart strongly, followed at a distance by the Visit Friends and Relatives (VFR) segment. After this, the tourist and business segments will gradually resume with great disparities according to nationalities. Religious travel segments and events are expected to be the last segments to recover.
Recovery order expected by type of Origin-Destination (O& D) The more distant and complicated the destination, the longer the recovery will take. However, this generalization will not be uniform across the globe, due to the impact of the intensity of economic, cultural, and political relations between territories. Airline Tactics consultants therefore foresee a resumption of demand in the "short" domestic markets, such as China, Mexico, and Russia. This will be followed by "long” domestic markets, such as the continental USA to Hawaii, or metropolitan France to its overseas possessions. Next will be international traffic between countries with “close cooperation” (regardless of distance) which is expected to resume earlier than regional and continental travel. Finally, the intercontinental O& D markets will take the longest to resume. Note that nonstop intercontinental flights should restart ahead of intercontinental routes with one or more stopovers in a third country, with exceptions for premium transit points like Dubai and Singapore which should trigger a faster recovery.
