• Emerging Tourism Stars to Debut This September: Connect Travel, owner and producer of eTourism Summit, has announced the inaugural Emerging Tourism Stars program in 2021 to recognize digital travel and tourism professionals on the rise and truly shining within the industry. Presented by eTourism Summit in partnership with MMGY Global, the 2021 Emerging Tourism Stars program was borne from the dedication and effort of so many new leaders in the industry who worked to overcome one of the most challenging years in travel and tourism. During the eTourism Summit, marking its 22nd conference in Las Vegas on Sept. 20-22, 2021, the ETS winners will be celebrated along with winners of the 4th Annual eTSY Awards for excellence in digital destination marketing. Click here for more details.
• From the Washington Post: When will travel be safe again? 5 experts weigh in. Courtney Kansler, senior health intelligence analyst with risk management firm Crisis24, said she anticipates more domestic travel and travel between countries with access to vaccines in mid-to-late 2021. But, she said, she doesn’t anticipate anything to resemble ‘normal’ until at least 2023. Because it will still take time for vaccines to be distributed globally — and science is still not clear on how long the vaccines give immunity — it’s hard to predict a long-term future for travel. She said she would expect it to be two to three years for the world to catch up.” Click here to go to the complete article.
• Adventure tour operator Oasis Overland is the latest victim on the COVID-19 tourism economy depression. The UK company, which offered small group expeditions by truck across Africa and other destinations such as South America and Central Asia, alongside hotel-based trips in Pakistan, Bolivia, Peru and southeast Asia, shut down last month. It was founded in 1998 and joined AITO The Specialist Travel Association in 2008. Jonathan Bryan and Chris Wrede, directors of the operator, said: “We are devastated to be unable to continue to trade. The past 11 months have been extremely tough and the outlook is very bleak for our type of adventure until the world is clear of COVID-19.”
• From fvw/Travel Talk: Many German tour operators saw revenues fall by up to 70% last year as the coronavirus pandemic killed off most of their business, the latest annual fvw tour operator dossier showed. The dossier for 2019/20 is based on responses from 28 tour operators (compared to 53 in the previous year) combined with publicly available figures for other large tour operators. It covers the largely ‘normal’ 2019/20 winter season and the massively impacted summer 2020 season.
• Physicians and Rights Groups are concerned about possible use of COVID-19 Vaccine passports. The U.S., U.K. and European Union are among those considering whether to introduce a digital passport that will allow citizens to show they have been vaccinated against COVID-19. It is thought some form of certificate system could help stimulate an economic recovery as countries prepare to relax public health measures over the coming weeks. Physicians and rights groups, however, are deeply concerned. Click here to read the full story as reported by CNBC.
• In the UK, Ben Poole, owner of Harrogate-based agency The Travel Journal, has launched a “self-tanning” brand as he seeks to add some diversity to the agency’s products during the pandemic. Harrogate Tan is selling tanning creams and water-based sprays. Poole created three shades of tan, named after different holiday personas: The Wanderluster, The Frequent Weekender and The Party Goer. “During the end of last year when we faced lockdowns and generally quieter times, I came to the realization that while people locally weren’t thinking about booking holidays I needed something to entice them into the shop,” Poole told Travel Weekly UK. “Everyone feels better once they have a holiday glow, and I liked the link between travel and the tanning products – so it’s a nice complementary product to sell. Plus, the products themselves take up very little space in the shop. We all need some sun and this will put a much-needed smile on people’s faces.”
• CVC consolidates B2B components. The CVC company’s brands—Esferatur, Trend and Visual—which were acquired in recent years by CVC Corp, officially ceased to exist last month and are now called RexturAdvance, the group’s only B2B brand. Travel agents will continue to have access to all products of these brands that are being discontinued (air, leisure and corporate hotels, packages, luxury, car rental, transfers and national and international travel), now with the unique name of RexturAdvance. The announcement of the change followed months of reorganizing at the firm which, like every other tourism business in Brazil, has had to endure significant losses in the wake of the global pandemic.
• In Mexico, Verena Knopp, president of the National Council of Tourist Services Exporters (CONEXSTUR) announced the launch of “The Door to Mexico by CONEXSTUR,” a window for the promotion of tourism in our country,” in which the 16 receptive operators that make up the association are joining efforts, with the support of several secretaries of tourism from different states of the country, such as Yucatán, Tamaulipas, Chiapas and Zacatecas.
• This company is now known as Dragon Trail International (龙途国际 in Chinese), said a recent announcement from the global consultancy, which has offices in China, the UK and the USA. Dragon Trail was founded in 2009 as a digital marketing agency aimed at helping overseas travel brands to reach Chinese consumers and the Chinese travel trade through outstanding digital initiatives. These services, including Chinese web and mobile development, social media marketing, and our WeChat-based travel trade marketing platforms and solutions, remain at the core of Dragon Trail International’s work. Contact: https://dragontrail.com/.
• American Airlines is increasing its operational capacity in Latin America. The airline’s plans include doubling its capacity for Colombia and Peru, increasing its operation by more than 50 percent for Ecuador and 24 percent for Central America, compared to 2019. Additionally, American will open new international routes from its Miami hub to Tel Aviv and Paramaribo, Suriname. As reported in Contactonews, Brian Znotins, American’s vice president of planning. Airlines, said “American has always been the biggest and best in Miami, with more flights to different locations than any other company, and as demand grows, we will be bigger and better than before … our new services to Tel Aviv and Paramaribo are the beginning of future growth in Miami.” According to the Mexico City-based news portal, REPORTUR.mx, as part of its new services, American Airlines recently announced the increase of several routes for the summer, among them, two new frequencies, the first to Mérida, Yucatán, from the Dallas Fort Worth Airport, and the second, from Los Angeles to Cancun, starting June 5. American Airlines has continued to increase its capacity to Latin America and the Caribbean by upgrading its aircraft and adding more services. For this summer the airline has planned 16 percent more capacity to the region from Miami—one of its important hubs—compared to 2019.
• Finally, this from OAG on March 1: “Optimism breaks out around the world as the capacity recovery is underway! Four million additional seats week on week may not seem that significant when in normal times global capacity was around the 106 million mark, but after four weeks of moving backwards a 7% week on week increase sounds like a really positive step. And it is, but airlines generally remain cautious about the coming months with a further 39 million seats removed by airlines through to the end of May; it may be the beginning of the meteorological spring, but we still have a long way to go in the recovery.”
