Some thoughts on the Travel Industry 2023

(A version of this article first appeared on LinkedIn which is contrary to my usual practise where I pen some fiery hot take on events and then water it down for polite society. Website was down, you know, sorry)

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2023 is set to be a big year for the travel industry.

Consumers may fear the future, be impacted by the cost-of-living crisis, forced to cut back on essentials, sacred of WW3, but – it appears – travel is the one item that is sacrosanct on their shopping list. Yep, people love to travel!

Professionally, I speak with travel companies all the time and the consistent message I’m getting is that people are partying like it’s 2019 again. But with a twist.

Figures seem to back this up. Heathrow’s YTD passenger numbers this year are nearly 100% up on 2022. They are only a few percentage points and a few hundred baggage handlers off 2019’s peak.

The UN’s World Travel Organisation predicted in January that travel will – with some caveats – be back to pre-pandemic levels in 2023. Particularly as China and other Asian countries finally eschew COVID era restrictions, the asymmetrical recovery of 2022 will now spread globally. Prior to the pandemic, Chinese tourists accounted for one tenth of all departures. A recovery here will boost numbers rapidly.

Psychologically, being locked down for two years has, I suspect, had an impact on the population. Pent up demand, ‘revenge travel’ has – I think – led to a wider shift in attitudes that values vacation experiences over – what? – ceaseless DIY, banana bread making, even prudence itself.

In a way, this determination to be open to new experiences, to embrace different cultures, to take time out, is a triumph of the human spirit. Brought low, we aim high.

But there is a twist.

The years of COVID took many of the workers out of the industry. From pilots, to hotel receptionists, to cooks, there is a widespread shortage of human capital behind travel infrastructure. People will have to be recruited and trained to bring levels of service back to pre-pandemic levels.

But this should also be a time for technology to drive structural efficiencies in the industry that could ameliorate the missing workers. For example, the check in process at most hotels is time consuming and frustrating where weary travellers often have to repeat information that has already been provided online previously. (This happened to me this week. I got an email from the hotel the night before my stay asking me to pre-register online to cut check in time. When I arrived, yes, of course, there was a blank form awaiting me. I fall for it every time!)

Digital check in – where travellers check themselves in and prove their ID using technology and receive their keys automatically could help both hotels and the passenger experience. It could help drive down fraud and chargebacks whilst freeing up (fewer) staff to concentrate on the customer experience. More prosaically, perhaps the consolidators could pass on more info along with booking and cash. Just a thought.

Blockchain technology has many potential applications in the travel industry from traveller ID to room management and yields and – here’s a good one! – luggage tracking.

One of the strides forward – perhaps – we experienced during the COVID years was the rapid spread of ordering by App in pubs and restaurants. You could order from the comfort of your own table and have stuff brought to you. Payment was easy too. Obviously, the premise of stopping people moving around a venue has gone thankfully but – unfortunately it seems – so has the technology. Bring it back!

One trend that I’m not sure will take off in 2023 but will in future years, is eco travel. There’s always been a tension between mass market travel and the environment. The time element is key; to do things quickly to fit in with time off from work often means sacrificing slower means of travel and can rule out destinations off the beaten track. Bleisure is gonna be big where consumers piggy back off corporate travel. Speaking personally, I always did this!

People are prioritising travel. They will make sacrifices elsewhere to have a holiday but with the economic environment looking uncertain at best and bleak at worst, I predict that whilst numbers may hold up in 2023 – and even increase – spend may not rise as much. Trading down, shorter haul destinations, cheaper hotels, all-inclusive offers, shorter durations might be order of the day. A lot will depend on whether we hit a recession later in the year.

So, travel is back in 2023, picnicking on the precipice perhaps and wondering whether the dark clouds in the distance will block the sun or float away. 

FOOTNOTES

• Chinese travellers set to double to 59M - Economist EIU – Tourism Outlook in 2023. This was written prior to the relaxing of COVID restrictions and so the numbers in 2023 will probably be much higher. Visa’s March 2023 Global Travel Insight suggests as much.

• Read about travel and blockchain here.

• Some travel trends for 2023 can be explored in this article at Phocus Wire.

• Digital hotel checkout is further explored in Hospitality Tech here.

The Battle of East Croydon

The following is an excerpt from the diaries of The Unknown Commuter, who fought in the legendary Battle of East Croydon. He's currently believed to be somewhere between Clapham Junction and Brighton waiting for a train. The reader is advised that the recollection includes strong opinions expressed robustly.

"Rail chaos. Where am I? My 17:52 from Clapham Junction has just been cancelled. Cancelled because too many drivers and conductors pulled a sickie. Because they can’t be bothered calling a real strike and therefore lose pay. So they do this low-down not turn up trick.

The petulant bosses cancel trains at the last minute. Twelve car coaches are reduced to four. When they turn up. Standing next to some git's armpit listening to techno leaking noisily from his headphones. Wanker.

So I stop off at the pub outside the station. And have a pint. Hope the chaos has died down. My train app says the train is now on time. Run to the station. Go on the platform. My train has been delayed. Doesn’t even merit a revised time. Just delayed. That is ominous. Okay, so no direct train. Recalibrate, so; if the 17:52 has been cancelled I’ll take whatever goes to East Croydon – they all go to East Croydon – and take my chances there. I jump on the first train arriving at my platform. Travellers swirl around the opened doors. No one tries for a seat – just to get on and then find somewhere to lean that’s not on a fellow passenger. Somewhere to hold on.

The train, almost deliberately, crawls to East Croydon. I mean, I could walk faster than this fucker. It must know there are whispered reports of mythical connecting train that will take me home. Leaving in ten minutes from East Croydon. So my train goes slow. Very slow. Stops at Purley and just chills for ten minutes. The conductor says something about there being congestion which means we’ve missed our slot to get into East Croydon. Fucking comedian. They’ve cancelled half the bloody trains! What congestion can there possibly be? Congestion at the bar in the striking drivers local, perhaps?

A feeling of bleak despair grows in me as I keep checking the time. I know, yes, I know, I’ve missed my connection. Gone like the wind. Unlike every other train tonight, my connecting train will be promptitude itself. Arrive on time. Leave on time. Of course.

So I join the chaos at East Croydon looking for another way home. Need a piss. Hey – I’m at a railway station. Need a piss. I know there is nowhere to go. When did that happen? When I was younger, I can still remember - though it’s pictured in sepia - you could take a piss at railway stations. Where did they all go those public conveniences? Maybe it was too many junkies shooting up or too strangers giving each other hand jobs but toilets in stations disappeared. So now what we gonna do? Hold it in while we wait for some fantasy train that will take me home which has fantasy functioning toilets.

The platform signs are in on the great swindle. Part of the con. Constantly changing, they show an ever changing landscape of fuck ups. Seasoned travellers, world weary and pissed off, stand up the stairs ready to run wherever directed. Just cause a train to the South coast is always on platform 2 or 3 doesn’t mean they won’t pull a surprise on you last minute. Platform 5! Leaving now. Run plebs! Too late.

So I stand on the concourse. Bladder full to fuck, ready to run, run wherever the electronic scoreboard predicts a train going my direction might be. Flashed up – it will arrive in ten minutes on platform 3. We all run down there jostling for space, for a place. Then the platform scoreboard flashes up that this train has been cancelled. Lots of shouts and swearing. Some of us go back up again. The scoreboard upstairs still says the cancelled train will arrive, er, well, about three minutes ago.

The station announcer employs a world-weary voice. Fed a diet of bullshit and nonsense by the train companies he reads out the ever changing deployment of fantasy trains he knows won’t make it. His bosses just want us off their platform, out of their station. Pass the problem further down the line. Get East Croydon passenger free, demob the mob on someone else’s patch. So they get the announcer to try and parse our journeys – push us to smaller stations with promises of legendary connecting trains. Some fall for it. We see them hours later, mournfully sat at Balcombe or Three Bridges helplessly watching the non-stopping Brighton trains pass them by. Idiots. Novices!

As to my own train, it’s now got a time, eight minutes hence on Platform 3. Hang on. No, it’s now twelve minutes away. No it’s cancelled. No it’s just late the announcer says. Might be at Clapham Junction. Might be further ahead. Who knows. Information is power.

Silently, below us on platform 2, a train pulls in unannounced. Suspicious, some passengers edge towards that platform. I hear a shout – it’s our train – just as the announcer tells us that it is indeed the train we want but it is now getting ready to depart. Shouts and swearing as three hundred people rush towards platform 2. Exactly ten seconds later an announcement says that we should move away from the doors as the train is preparing to leave.

Fuck off.

We rush the train, rush the doors, the rail people on the platform tells us to move away but we’re an unstoppable, feral force of nature. They’re concentration camp guards, and collaborators. Fuck off. To the sword with them!

We storm the train. Push the guy with the folded bike out the way, edge past the confused old couple who had a day’s shopping in London and now rather wish they didn’t. The seats are all taken. Naturally. So we’re packed in, standing, holding onto whatever we can. The LCD sign in the carriage boldly displays that we will be going back up to London Victoria – the wrong way FFS. Can’t these monkeys get anything right? The conductor comes over the tannoy and announces that we should stay away from the doors. Cheers mate, but where are we actually going? This way or that? Not until the doors have shut and we start to crawl away – packed, overweight, angry – and it’s too late to change – does the conductor announce that this train is indeed going south.

And we crawl there. Two toilets out of three are out of action. The one I go in looks blocked. I don’t care. Shut eyes and leave quickly.  Ah the relief. My station is announced. As I get off, tired, sweaty, battered, the station tannoy says that the 19:54 train to Brighton is ten minutes late. It’s taken me two hours of stress to get here. Should be fifty minutes.

Wankers. Truly wankers.

The battle begins anew tomorrow."

This repost from 2016 is dedicated to the morons who are striking all through December on South Western Trains. Tossers. 

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In Bruges.

Decided on a spur-of-the-moment to take a trip to Bruges. I don't think I've been here since, I dunno, 1978. The world has changed, Jim Callaghan's dead, the Boomtown Rats are not at Number 1 in the charts, but Bruges seems pretty unchanged.

Beer and chocolate, waffles and mussels, frites and mayo. Lots of stunning Flemish architecture, good museums, great hotel. Canals, picture postcard views, tri-lingual Belgians... What's not to like?

Gotham City meets Flanders meets Lowry.

I think I might do this again. You know, take off, go somewhere. Be free. Be spontaneous. 

Next week, I'll be coming from - who knows? Brighton? Burgess Hill? Or - what about Battersea Arts Centre?

Yeah. Goede Nacht. As we say around here.

A classic shot - on all the postcards - rendered by TR at an unusual time. After dinner. More Leffe, vicar?

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The Battle of East Croydon

The following is an excerpt from The Unknown Commuter, who fought in the legendary Battle of East Croydon, summer 2016. He's currently believed to be somewhere between Clapham Junction and Brighton waiting for a train. The reader is advised that the recollection includes strong opinions expressed robustly.

"Rail chaos. Where am I? My 17:52 from Clapham Junction has just been cancelled. Cancelled because too many drivers and conductors pulled a sickie. Because they can’t be bothered calling a real strike and lose money. So they do this low-down trick.

The petulant bosses cancel trains at the last minute. Twelve car coaches are reduced to four. When they turn up. Standing next to some git's armpit listening to his techno leaking from his headphones. Wanker.

So I stop off at the pub. And have a pint. Hope the chaos has died down. My train app says the train is on time. Run to the station. Go on the platform. My train has been delayed. Doesn’t even merit a revised time. Just delayed. That is ominous. Okay, so no direct train. Recalibrate, so; if the 17:52 has been cancelled I’ll take whatever goes to East Croydon – they all go to East Croydon – and take pot luck there. I jump on the first train arriving at my platform. Travellers swirl around the opened doors. No one tries for a seat – just to get on and then find somewhere to lean that’s not on a fellow passenger. Somewhere to hold on.

The train, almost deliberately, crawls to East Croydon. I mean, I could walk faster than this fucker. It must know there are whispered reports of mythical connecting train that will take me home. Leaving in ten minutes from East Croydon. So my train goes slow. Very slow. Stops at Purley and just chills for ten minutes. The conductor says something about there being congestion which means we’ve missed our slot to get into East Croydon. Fucking comedian. They’ve cancelled half the bloody trains? What congestion can there possibly be? Congestion at the bar in the striking drivers local, perhaps?

A feeling of bleak despair grows in me as I keep checking the time. I know, yes, I know, I’ve missed my connection. Gone like the wind. Unlike every other train tonight, my connecting train will be promptitude itself. Arrive on time. Leave on time. Of course.

So I join the chaos at East Croydon looking for another way home. Need a piss. Hey – I’m at a railway station. Need a piss. I know there is nowhere to go. When did that happen? When I was younger, I can still remember - though it’s pictured in sepia - you could take a piss at railway stations. Where did they all go to, those public conveniences? Maybe it was too many junkies shooting up or too strangers giving each other hand jobs but toilets in stations disappeared. So now what we gonna do? Hold it in while we wait for some fantasy train that will take me home which has fantasy functioning toilets.

The platform signs are in on the great swindle. Part of the con. Constantly changing, they show an ever changing landscape of fuck ups. Seasoned travellers, world weary and pissed off, stand up the stairs ready to run wherever directed. Just cause a train to the South coast is always on platform 2 or 3 doesn’t mean they won’t pull a surprise on you last minute. Platform 5! Leaving now. Run plebs! Too late.

So I stand on the concourse. Bladder full to fuck, ready to run, run wherever the electronic scoreboard predicts a train going my direction might be. Flashed up – it will arrive in ten minutes on platform 3. We all run down there jostling for space, for a place. Then the platform scoreboard flashes up that this train has been cancelled. Lots of shouts and swearing. Some of us go back up again. The scoreboard upstairs still says the cancelled train will arrive, er, well, about three minutes ago.

The station announcer employs a world-weary voice. Fed a diet of bullshit and nonsense by the train companies he reads out the ever changing deployment of fantasy trains he knows won’t make it. His bosses just want us off their platform, out of their station. Pass the problem further down the line. Get East Croydon passenger free, demob the mob on someone else’s patch. So they get the announcer to try and parse our journeys – push us to smaller stations with promises of legendary connecting trains. Some fall for it. We see them hours later, mournfully sat at Balcombe or Three Bridges helplessly watching the non-stopping Brighton trains pass them by. Idiots. Novices!

As to my own train, it’s now got a time, eight minutes hence on Platform 3. Hang on. No, it’s now twelve minutes away. No it’s cancelled. No it’s just late the announcer says. Might be at Clapham Junction. Might be further ahead. Who knows. Information is power.

Silently, below us on platform 2, a train pulls in unannounced. Suspicious, some passengers edge towards that platform. I hear a shout – it’s our train – just as the announcer tells us that it is indeed the train we want but it is now getting ready to depart. Shouts and swearing as three hundred people rush towards platform 2. Exactly ten seconds later an announcement says that we should move away from the doors as the train is preparing to leave.

Fuck off.

We rush the train, rush the doors, the rail people on the platform tells us to move away but we’re an unstoppable, feral force of nature. They’re concentration camp guards, and collaborators. Fuck off. To the sword with them!

We storm the train. Push the guy with the folded bike out the way, edge past the confused old couple who had a day’s shopping in London and now rather wish they didn’t. The seats are all taken. Naturally. So we’re packed in, standing, holding onto whatever we can. The LCD sign in the carriage boldly displays that we will be going back up to London Victoria – the wrong way FFS. Can’t these monkeys get anything right? The conductor comes over the tannoy and announces that we should stay away from the doors. Cheers mate, but where are we actually going? This way or that? Not until the doors have shut and we start to crawl away – packed, overweight, angry – and it’s too late to change – does the conductor announce that this train is indeed going south.

And we crawl there. Two toilets out of three are out of action. The one I go in looks blocked. I don’t care. Shut eyes and leave quickly.  Ah the relief. My station is announced. As I get off, tired, sweaty, battered, the station tannoy says that the 19:54 train to Brighton is ten minutes late. It’s taken me two hours of stress to get here. Should be fifty minutes.

Wankers. Truly wankers.

The battle begins anew tomorrow."

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