What will travel look like under our new ‘normal’?

This is a collaborative post

I’m not ashamed to admit that I am more than a little uneasy at the prospect of a ‘new normal’. A change to the way we shop, the way we work and the way we travel. Even after just 5 weeks of lockdown, looking through old photographs of our family holidays makes everything feels a bit surreal. So many people so close together, photos I snapped on crowded bridges in Milan, cheering in full stadiums in Barcelona, seeing huge cruise ships pass by with hundreds of passengers waving as they approach the dock. I find myself watching programmes or films on TV that were filmed long before the 2020 pandemic and thinking why are the people are standing to close together, or even feeling slightly jealous of family gatherings and emotional reunions at the airport!

At the point of writing, I have absolutely no idea what travel will look like going forwards. Whether we will regret having not taken that family holiday abroad last year whilst we still could, regret not visiting my friend in Oz before they closed the borders, regret not seeing more of the wonders of the world, or ticking off places on my Bucketlist whilst we still could. Indeed when we are allowed to fly again, I don’t even know whether the experience of our holidays will even look or feel the same.

I know I am not alone, many of my friends and family have had to deal with flight cancellations over recent weeks and months, and as coronavirus continues to be a global challenge, we can fully expect to see more of this. In some cases, flights may even be cancelled due to a lack of people flying and when this happens, passengers may be entitled to compensation. If this applies to you, the Flightright website has a free tool so you can quickly and easily check whether or not you can claim compensation, even if your flight was simply delayed or rebooked. It’s important to note here that they can look at compensation claims not only for coronarvirus related cancellations, but for delays, cancellations and missed connections going back up to 6 years!! Definitely worth a look if you’ve had that experience. My in laws are currently waiting to hear whether their holiday in June will be cancelled, with them having accepted now that it is highly unlikely to take place, yet not having been formally told so by their travel provider. It feels like a weird game of poker, waiting to see who plays their hand first.

We were lucky in some respects that we hadn’t yet booked any family holidays for 2020, so we don’t have to face the challenge of informing disappointed kids, but I have many friends who’s weddings or 40th birthday celebrations have had to be put on hold. Will their planned travels ever be the same? For those who have booked trips in the UK, many accommodation venues here at least are allowing customers to rebook for a later date in 2021, reducing the risk of losing deposits or in some cases full payment especially if they didn’t have travel insurance.

There are talks of missing out the centre seats on flights so that passengers can continue to socially distance (although that’s clearly not 2 metres and surely air conditioning on flights makes any transmission of viruses a lot easier anyway) and even the more far fetched suggestions of sunbathing in glass cages on beaches in Lanzarote! Sitting in restaurants with tables two metres apart, and limiting the number allowed in shops. The photos in the albums just seem so unlikely now.

But will tourism survive? Will we even want to risk travelling out of the UK and crossing the borders? At the moment I’m really not sure. The tourism business has survived many challenges in the past, from natural disasters to terrorism, but in my lifetime at least, this is the first time travel changes have been indefinite, with no clear end in sight. I hope that working together the countries across the globe can help find a way to rebuild tourism and allow us to travel safely again, but for now it feels we have quite a long way to go to make that happen.

I have friends living in Milan, and I am watching closely her experience as the lockdown is lifted. I hope that we can ease these restrictions without a second peak, or learn to manage the rate of infection so we can all crave that personal connection we are missing so greatly.