The pandemic has brought the travel industry to its knees all over the world. Even as some countries try to open up tourist spots, they still don’t look quite like they used to. Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky said we shouldn’t expect to return to the travel we knew before.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Chesky said there are going to be major changes in the tourism industry which will transform the nature of travel and tourism forever.
He came out clear on this prediction stating: ‘Travel as you knew it is over. You are never ever going to see it again’.
He explained that the way people will view travel has changed because of heightened concern over safety and health. Issues like dense population areas, long queues and crossing borders and travelling for business have all been lost as a result of the new ways of thinking.
Chesky explains that he envisions this resulting in more local travel, with an emphasis on smaller communities. ‘Instead of going to Paris, people are going to Pittsburgh,’ he said.
In addition, the shift from cramped indoor spaces to an improved interest in the outdoors for its relative space and non-recycled air will likely happen.
He predicts business travel will take a hit because the pandemic has proven that it’s not necessary to be in the same place for a meeting, convention or conference when there are technological solutions such as Zoom available.
While these changes all speak to how things are going to move away from what they were, he also predicted the addition of a new kind of travel- the ‘travel as living’ concept. So, instead of taking leave to go on holiday, if you can work remote it is likely you could take your trip and work at the same time.
‘If you can do your job from home, you can work from any home anywhere in the world,’ he said.
Chesky went so far as to point out that the way people live, settled in one city and beholden to one office space, will change and therefore the concept of urban settlement will as well. If people only need an internet connection and their computer, there is no longer a need to live in one place for an extended period of time.
Whether these predictions will come true is to be seen. While the predictions regarding business travel and local travel have already been been proven right in countries which have opened, the larger restructure of work and living might only apply to certain contexts as factors such as wealth, cultural norms and infrastructure could hinder this new free-moving life concept.
Watch the full conversation:
Image credit: Unsplash
