The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) anticipated that by late 2021 or in early 2022, international travels will return to pre-pandemic levels. However, recovery won’t happen soon as it’s not going to be business as usual for tourism industries. Apparently, the global tourism industry has to redefine, modify and realign tourism programs since travellers are now looking to go to places that are not crowded.
This denotes that travel managers will have to plan tours either exclusively for vaccinated people, or arrange stays in remote environmental parks that naturally adopt social distancing between visitors and community locals.
What the tourism industry must adopt is a sustainable approach of adopting safe health measures. Sustainable in the sense that the tourism activities will bring back economic recovery in communities, without setting off another spread of the mutating coronavirus disease.
Helping Travellers Find Safe Tour Options
To help potential tourists find safe choices of travel destinations, they should have access to a portal that contains links to travel restrictions across the globe. The United Nations Humanitarian Data Exchange is an example of such portal. it provides an interactive map of countries with travel and airline restrictions updated daily by the UN World Food Program.
A data driven approach is now being touted as the solution that can help the travel and tourism industry recover safely. Tourism managers must band together to avoid crowding; not only to minimize risks of coronavirus transmissions but also to reduce the negative impact of mass tourism on the environment.
They can coordinate via apps that integrate data about visitor flows, to keep overcrowding in check in tourist destinations. Occupancy apps are now being used by tourists in Paris and Milan as a way to avoid going to places already teeming with visitors. That way they are sure there’s enough room for safe distancing.
An app called Affluences monitors in real time the levels of visitor occupancy in resorts, shopping malls, museums and at public transports. Similar apps are likewise in use in Japan and in Slovenia, relying mostly on data provided by mobile phone service providers, social media networks, tourist tax registries, and open Wi-Fi and Bluetooth sensors.
In the Asia Pacific, the indicators are tied to the environmental impact affecting island countries considered as the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. As a sustainable approach, the level of tourism depends on the health and stability of land and marine ecosystems.
Tourism-Related Business and Use of Smart Shopping Campaigns for Marketing
Use of the Smart Shopping marketing campaigns are highly recommended for travel-related products and services. Here, the target audience are the so called smart shoppers looking for the best deals to optimize their budgets.
These breed of shoppers are always on the lookout for airline discounts, online purchase promotions, signups for surveys, reviews and referral programs that convert into great value for minimizing actual costs of products being reviewed.
The smart shopping system uses Google data to drive revenue. One excellent example of a smart and timely campaign is Intuit’s Glance software. This has been running a smart shopping campaign to attract users of Quickbooks or Turbo Tax looking to iron out their federal tax returns so they can claim their refunds early.
Since the vacation months are just around the corner, travel and tourism-related businesses should likewise start running their smart shopping campaigns