Travel Exec Predicts Strong 2022 Forecast Despite Omicron Variant and Airline Cancellations // HotelPlanner President Available for Comment

“As of October, half of US adults said they planned to fly in the next six months, and that survey was taken at the height of the Delta variant. Now that the U.S. has lifted travel restrictions from 33 previously banned countries, millions of inbound travelers will still visit the U.S. in the coming months and years, regardless of the Omicron variant or future variants. Travel confidence should remain high regardless of temporary and localized travel bans due to new Covid variants. In Europe for example, more than half of British adults plan to travel overseas next year, a 46% increase compared to this time last year. Despite all the pandemic challenges and uncertainties, the return of global travel in 2022 will have positive ripple effects across the service and hospitality industries around the world. ” 

Additional Talking Points: 

• What types of travel are increasing. Conventional wisdom says travel is decreasing. Not all of it. In the past few months, weddings, reunions, and more have increased dramatically to the point where many hotels transform lobbies into wedding spaces.  
• The impact of staffing shortages. Some workers are refusing to apply for cleaning jobs. Many pilots refuse vaccines. These trends lead to staffing shortages, which in turn are causing travelers to run into delays when checking into hotels, a lack of cleaning people, and more new dilemmas. Fear not. Hentschel has tips to get you through it, like hotels’ new digital check-in programs.
• How hotels have changed because of COVID-19. Weddings aren’t the only additions to lobbies. Many hotels are renovating lobbies to resemble Starbucks to welcome workers who work on the road. 

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HotelPlanner is a leading travel technology company that combines proprietary artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, and a 24/7 global gig-based reservations and customer service network, to quickly and seamlessly serve all traveler hotel & accommodation needs from a single platform. 

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Founded in 2004, HotelPlanner has enduring partnerships with the world’s largest Online Travel Agencies, well-known hotel chains, individual hotels, online wedding providers, ancillary lodging providers, corporations, sports franchises, universities, and government agencies.