After massive lay-offs, What’s the future of Tour Operators?

It’s no secret that tour operators have had to do many layoffs in the past year to survive the crisis. Many laid-off workers have found new jobs outside the travel industry, which is resulting in a new challenge: companies in the tourism sector now struggle to find staff and are faced with the inability to meet the demand that has caught many players off guard.

Let’s look back and state that tourism is all about experiences. Not being able to process customer inquiries in a reasonable time, or providing an experience that is below the customer expectation, will slowly but steadily lead to clientele loss.

As much as we all believe and accept that people are important in all aspects, we have to equally accept and embrace a growing trend of investing in travel technology instead of re-hiring to pre-Covid numbers. The importance of proceeding with digital transformation for travel companies is now more critical than ever.

Being fast in responses, making quotes, collaborating with your suppliers, responding to inquiries, having your colleagues working from different addresses; all need new processes and new technology. Without it, travel companies will face the threat of losing opportunities and revenue, thus slowing down their much-needed recovery.

The billion-dollar question is starting to impose itself “Now that travel is steadily resuming globally, how will Tour companies cope with the lack of qualified personnel to get back on track” and Yes, this is where technology is coming to establish itself as a new normal and everyone will have to adapt to fit it the digital anticipated future