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Travel Lifestyle Is Changing
Economic turndown has brought a lot of changes to our socio-economic and political way of life. Workers are being laid off, businesses have frozen expansion programmes, and salaries and bonuses have been suspended while families have cancelled holiday plans.
Households have also tightened their belts with austerity measures all aimed at cutting down expenses while others are coming to terms with the sad fact that their homes have acquired negative mortgage status.Whereas phrase such as credit crunch, economic melt down, economic stimulus are degenerating to cliches in ordinary public use, politicians and economists are giving them increasing attention.
BAA the owner and operator of 7 airports, including Gatwick, Heathrow and Stansted airports in London, reported earlier in the year that there have been year-on-year passenger decreases. They say there was a decline of about 7% on average between November 2008 and Jan 2009. In the same period, domestic traffic fell by 12.0 per cent, European traffic was down by six per cent, North Atlantic traffic declined by 5.0 percent and international traffic saw a decrease of 1.9 percent.
Airlines know their trade well. They are also changing with time. Most travellers are now getting what hitherto was reserved for the rich. From airport lounges to 5-star hotels, heavily discounted upgrades and business-oriented rate cards are now being highly promoted in a bid to woo cash cows: business travelers.
Airlines are also giving business travelers extras such as fanciful Wi-Fi, satellite radio, advance seat assignments and priority boarding to lure customers. It can't get better for ordinary travellers. This is the time to grab a cheap airport hotel or a cheap flight to paradise. It will be a good way to remember the recession in years to come.
Businesses are booking fewer banquet halls and blocks of rooms in expensive hotels leaving many establishments vacant. This has taken away a reliable revenue portfolio that used to generate income. Corporate travelers often pay higher airfares to sit in the first class cabins. Moreover businesses are able to book flights and coaches at short notice irrespective of the cost.
Corporate meetings are being replaced with teleconferencing-type business meetings employing technology that was getting a bit moribund. Teleconferencing was first created for the corporate world but adoption of this technology has slowed down attracting interest from marginal users such as doctors and teachers. Cynics have refused to empathise with the corporate world because they feel that the corporate, especially the financial institutions, precipitated the economic melt down.
Interestingly, this changing scenario goes a long way to give credence to the law of compensation. According to popular belief, for every loss there is a gain and for every thing we gain there must be a loss. Some people reckon that there are no exceptions. Businesses have always tried to exploit this situation by turning adversity into opportunity. We can see this playing out in the travel industry. The industry has become more and more competitive. We know that high unemployment affects the economy as less people have money to spend which in turn affect the businesses. This is directly and indirectly responsible for poor economic growth, a situation that affects us all. The question is, who is gaining from this loss?
The prolonged drop in passenger traffic has heightened the price and capacity war among major carriers on both popular international and domestic routes. Airlines are using a combination of fare discount and new aircraft to woo passengers. A certain segment of passengers continue to savour this price war as fares keep fluctuating on the domestic routes, allowing them to save money and choose airlines with low fares. So although we know that many people have suspended flying because of hard economic times, there is a new crop of travellers emerging, those who shunned travelling during the time of economic boom.
To follow the chain of events from a particular cause through to its effect would be virtually impossible as a complex series of actions takes place from the initial cause. How much this is a direct cause and effect remains a debatable point.
For now we can comfortably say that that recession has introduced a new dimension to travelling. I hope that you will, at last, the place you have always dreamt about but never made it due to prohibitive charges. Every cloud has a silver lining. We can change this recession into an opportunity.
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