USTOA Executive Committee Members Look to 2021 for Travel Recovery

In all likelihood, travel will not significantly pick up steam until 2021, said members of USTOA’s executive committee during a virtual Town Hall Meeting.

USTOA President and CEO Terry Dale noted that findings from a new USTOA member survey, which has yet to be released, found that 57 percent of active-member business on the books for 2021 is rebooked guests from canceled 2020 departures.

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“Eighty percent of current bookings are to international destinations, and 20 percent to North America,” he said.

“I’m thinking that the third and fourth quarters of 2020 will probably be a slow restart,” said Holland America Group Executive Vice President Charlie Ball, adding that much depends “on the presence of a second surge of COVID-19 – and for any of our businesses to work, people have to be comfortable getting on aircraft” and traveling to destinations. “Next year is going to be our first chance to move ahead from this difficult time,” he said.

Scott Wiseman, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Brand Management at ALG, noted that approximately half of the company’s guests that canceled due to the pandemic have rebooked.

“That’s good news that people are still fortified to come back and travel,” he said. “I think the first quarter of 2021 is very soft, but we do see people shooting past that first quarter for bookings – and we’re seeing a very strong buildup in the second and third quarters of 2021.”

At CIE Tours, CEO Elizabeth Crabill said: “86 percent of the business is rebooking into the future, and almost all of that is booking into 2021.”

Travelers booking with CIE this year are “people who are aware of the risks as we know them today, but also are willing to wait and see what the destinations look like for the fourth quarter of 2020,” she said. “But primarily it is looking like most of our customers who are rebooking are more comfortable booking into 2021.”

Madhvi Buch, Senior Vice President of The Travel Corporation, noted that the company “hasn’t seen a huge drop in the bookings that we are already holding for the third and fourth quarters of this year, but we’re definitely not seeing any new green shoots coming back.”

Meanwhile, Tauck CEO Dan Mahar said 2021 bookings are mainly comprised of rebookings from 2020. “It is heartening to see that demand is very strong, but I think our recovery will come down to the availability of medications and vaccines [being] widely available, not only for our customers here, but in the destinations where we travel. I think that’s going to be very critical.”

At Globus Family of Brands, “passengers on the books from September to December of this year is 56 percent of our normal volume, which really is not that bad when you think about,” said the company CEO Scott Nisbet.

Next year is even more promising, with the company 18 percent ahead of 2019. “The reason for that is we had a strong start pre Covid-19, and there’s a huge volume of what we ‘call letters of credit’ – people who moved their bookings from 2020 to 2021. “That’s going to give us a good boost for next year.”

He added, “If you look at the last five weeks of business, excluding all those letters of credit, bookings are coming in 50 percent of normal, which is pretty amazing – given this is probably the worst five weeks in the history of the world for booking travel. So there’s some hope.”