Ep 59: The Pandemic One Year On: What Have Travel & Tourism Learned?

11 March 2021 marks one year since the WHO declared a pandemic. So, what have we learned in South East Asia, and how can those lessons be best applied?

From a current standpoint, two things are clear: 1) international travel and tourism are in a desperate state, and 2) the travel industry hasn’t been able to find the solutions required to escape from the darkness.

This week, Gary and Hannah discuss 10 vital learnings from the past year, and how these discoveries can be used to drive a recovery.

We found out that Travel Bubbles didn’t work in 2020, so are they now a dead concept? What will be the future relationship between vaccines, PCR testing and quarantines? Will tourism authorities invest in domestic travel once borders reopen? Did governments finally learn to differentiate between travel and tourism? What role will China and India play in revitalising regional tourism? And, once the pandemic subsides, will the travel industry take the climate crisis seriously? All this and much, much more…