The travel industry is a funny business, not funny ha, ha, but strange and weird, forever influenced by the socio-economic conditions of the world.
If it is a very cold winter in the USA and northern Europe, the demand for oil increases and the price of fuel goes up. The oil producing states are happy, but many airlines are faced with higher jet fuel prices and this year alone, several carriers have gone bankrupt.
At the same time, the residents of the chilly climates book vacations in the sun and thus provide a cushion for the airlines by enabling them to increase their cabin factors.
If the jet fuel costs go down, as the winters become warmer, the expenses of the airlines are reduced, but their cabin factors could be affected by fewer travellers, with more vacationers staying at home.
This was the old and traditional way of looking at the travel industry. Today, we have been hit by a tsunami of economic meltdown proportions, as the equity markets collapse and many hundreds of thousands of blue collar workers are losing their livelihoods.
I have no sympathy for the CEO’s of these companies, who took home millions of dollars in bonuses and other perks, but it is the majority of employees, who are suffering as the prime mortgage situation spreads its wings from the USA to Europe and now to the Middle East. This downturn has already hit the travel business.
But what goes around comes around. As we saw the oil producing countries enjoying massive windfalls, as the “black gold” reached $145 a barrel, now we are seeing Middle East stock exchanges in the red, as investors scurry around trying to find a safe place for their money.
I was discussing all this with a friend working in finance recently, who tried to enrich my limited knowledge of world economics and financial trends. The next day, I was in complete bewilderment, as we queued for a table at our favourite restaurant in Dubai, for Dubai is packed with visitors from the UK, Russia, Germany and France, whose economies are currently suffering.
Hotels in the Gulf region are booming, although in the UK, a number of travel companies are reported to be cutting costs of holiday packages by more then 50 per cent.
So the old-fashioned “holiday in the sun” seem still to be the vogue in the Gulf states, because of their investments in superb hotels and other exciting tourism attractions, they are in a good position to benefit, as long as the new meltdown from the credit card loans does not become traumatic.
Hotel’s in Dubai during the autumn and winter periods are enjoying record occupancy levels and for all the Gulf airlines the forward bookings look healthy… so maybe, just maybe, we will escape the worst of the slowdown.
However, that is about inbound traffic - and what about outbound travel? I believe, that most travel agency companies now have realised that creativity is the name of the game.
Apart from Space Travel, which I will call fictional tourism for the ordinary travellers, because it will only ever be affordable for the few multi-billionaires in the world, there are other lucrative fields of tourism, which are always with us, if we just bother to take an interest.
For example, medical tourism is very big in the USA and has always been an integral part of travel from the Gulf with many families sending their ill relatives to India, Germany, France, the UK and the USA for the latest treatments.
Of course, stretcher cases can be problematic for the travel agent and that airline, but there are many other patients, who can travel normally to their destinations. In most cases, people travel for medical treatment to gain better, more personal service or to save money, and they are mostly not on their own, because they are often accompanied by one or more relatives.
Religious tourism is another much overlooked sector of the travel market. In this Muslim region, there are the usual Haj and Umra pilgrimages, but there are also thousands of expats, who visit historic and current attractions like the Vatican in Rome or the shrine in Lourdes in France.
Faith based cruising, monastery visits, missionary travel - it is big numbers. The World Tourism Organisation estimated that last year, 330 million pilgrims visited the world’s key religious sites.
Cruising has already been affected by the economic downturn according to forward bookings since the meltdown and one of the world’s large cruise ship operators has decided to not pay shareholders a dividend in order to save costs. Australia bound cruise ships have reduced their sailings.
My husband says, that he always seems to be part of shopping tourism, when he travels with me, but in fact, the Dubai Shopping Festivals have attracted more than three million visitors every year and the Egypt Shopping Festival is equally popular.
Another segment of the travel industry, which is sometimes forgotten, is wedding tourism. This segment is unlikely to be affected by any downturn in the Gulf, which seems to be holding up pretty well and will certainly not stop couples from marrying. Favourite destinations chosen by Gulf couples include Thailand, Malaysia and the Maldives, though quite a few couples like to visit London on their honeymoon.
For the people in the travel industry it is obviously paramount to have the latest travel and tourism info at their fingertips in order to benefit from early new trends in tourism and travel for their businesses to prosper and grow.
The world’s global travel industry has sustained many storms be it economic or force major events. Innovation, resilience and determination combined with the incredible technologically advances in the last 30 years will no doubt see this industry survive this current world economic downturn.
That is, of course, only my personal opinion and everyone else is most welcome to their own overviews of today’s travel industry!
Speaking Out by Jonna Simon
