Tourism and hospitality were some of the most impacted sectors during the Covid-19 outbreak. Even as the marketplace is adapting to the new normal of working under the constant gaze of a pandemic coming up with new variants after every few months, the tourism sector seems to open up gradually.
The 7th Edition of ET Global Business Summit 2022 organized by the Times Group and The Economic Times saw participation from global business leaders who discussed how the tourism sector was picking up during the recovery phase.
During a discussion on “Travel Industry - From Shock to Surge”, Glenn Fogel, President & CEO, Booking Holdings spoke to Vinod Mahanta, Senior Editor, The Economic Times about his plans for India amidst surge in the domestic travel industry. “India market is an incredible opportunity for anybody who wants to be in the travel industry. I do believe that we need to continue to do what we are doing, which is making sure that Booking.com is a well recognized travel player in India and able to give a great service that we do throughout the world so that Indian [consumers] get the benefits of all the things that we offer,” said Fogel.
As the world is speculating on the end of the pandemic, the aviation industry is more focussed and stressed on the challenges post pandemic. “In a world where we want to have global connectivity, where we acknowledge that there is a growth of demand, that is likely to continue to build but coupled with the fact that the physics of flight and current propulsion technologies, means that it will be a carbon producer. It is fair to say that this is the industry’s biggest challenge ever,” Tony Douglous, Group CEO, Etihad Aviation Group said at ET GBS 2022.
Since India has started to lift curbs on travel, a huge shift has been seen in the way people travel now. Instead of traveling across borders, people have been traveling within their own country, going to places, particularly rural areas hitherto unexplored. Airbnb partnered with local governments to encourage tourism to those areas to keep a hold on economic opportunities as the need of the hour.
In a discussion around the exiting pandemic and a rebound in tourism, Nathan Blecharczyk, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Airbnb, said, “Tourism is important to different local markets in different parts of India. And we couldn't be more excited to partner with the local governments across India, leveraging our teams to better localize Airbnb in their markets.”
Airbnb is planning to hire more than 100 high-tech jobs, tapping into the local talent and offering high paying jobs as it is all set to open a technology hub in the city of Bangalore, informed Blecharczyk.
During a pandemic crisis, there are many stakeholders who are having their own challenges and it's important to think about each of them and what their needs are and how you might work together to benefit both parties, Nathan added.
Kyndryl is the presenting partner of the summit. It is co-powered by Capgemini. GfK is the intelligence partner, Samunnati and Paxfaul are associate partners, ET Edge Insights is the knowledge partner of the summit and is brought by ET Edge Unwired.
(Disclaimer: This article has been produced on behalf of TSSL by Mediawire team)
