Prioritizing Community, Curiosity, and an Open Exchange of Ideas to Define Travel’s Future

This sponsored content was created in collaboration with a Skift partner.

This new series from SkiftX, Skift’s in-house content studio, highlights the work we’re doing and our vision for the future.

The COVID-19 pandemic has radically shifted what it means to operate a travel business and how to approach travel marketing almost overnight. The marketing, content, and event strategies that were in place two months ago are not the same approaches needed today, especially in the B2B space.

There’s no doubt that travel brands will play a major role in defining what comes next. According to the Edelman Trust Barometer Coronavirus Update, 62 percent of consumers agree that America “will not make it through this crisis without brands playing a critical role in addressing the challenges we face.” Right now, the travel industry — and Skift’s audience — is looking to thought leaders for lessons on how to respond to the crisis and navigate the path ahead. We know that no one person or brand has a definitive answer about the future. And there isn’t going to be one single airline or hotel company that leads travel’s rebound.

The industry is facing challenges on an unprecedented scale, and travel leaders should take this opportunity to learn from and listen to one another. By connecting with industry peers to gather informed perspectives, meaningful dialogue can be created around the solutions and strategies needed to move forward and rebound.

We’ve already seen the value of this over the last few weeks. Every day, industry leaders are exchanging ideas about how the travel industry can rebuild and rebound via “virtual happy hours” over Zoom, deep discussions on Twitter and LinkedIn, and the countless industry networking events, workshops, and webinars that live stream online daily. You have likely seen Skift’s editorial team leading our own conversations with business leaders through our weekly Skift Summits.

In that spirit, the SkiftX Creative Studio has launched an industry-wide thought leadership initiative to hear directly from individuals in the hospitality, meeting and event, and destination marketing industries. The goal is to use these short surveys, combined with qualitative interviews as a travel marketing tool to understand how companies have been impacted by COVID-19, the attitudes and perceptions of industry leaders, and the actions needed for a strong rebound.

As Skift’s in-house agency, we have access to the largest audience of influential travel professionals across the globe — many who are on the frontlines of the industry, doing everything they can to solve their business challenges. By listening to what our readers are experiencing firsthand, we hope to grasp the true scope of COVID-19’s effect on the travel industry. The responses will be used to help inform upcoming SkiftX content investigating what’s needed in hospitality, meetings and events, and destination marketing to solve the business challenges ahead and facilitate recovery.

Click on the survey in your industry below to share your learnings, solutions, challenges, and opinions about what’s needed to navigate towards travel’s future with us.

• Skift’s 2020 Hospitality Recovery: As hospitality industry executives figure out how to navigate their business through these times, there are plenty of unanswered questions. We’re asking those in the sector to share their thoughts on what they’ll need to position themselves to succeed in the future. The results will be released in a report publishing in collaboration with Oracle Hospitality later this summer.
• Meetings and Events – Navigating The Path Forward: The pandemic has had a dramatic and immediate impact on the meetings and events sector around the world. As event planners across the industry figure out the best path forward, many are looking for direction about how to operate in this period of rapid change. In this open-ended survey, we ask for learnings and insights on how the sector might adapt to this new reality.
• The State of Destinations – Accelerating Tourism Recovery: The outlook for recovery is unique to every destination. In this study, we ask destination leaders to share their outlook and perspective on what’s needed to forge the path towards recovery and resiliency.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas to decipher what’s next.

Want to continue the conversation and learn more about how SkiftX and travel marketing initiatives like this can help your brand? Visit us at skiftx.com or email us at [email protected].

Matt Heidkamp is SkiftX’s Creative Strategy Director.