Mountains Of Mistrust: Airlines, Hotels Have An Epic Climb Ahead To Overcome Customers’ Health & Safety Doubts

It’s hardly surprising that some travelers, even high-mileage frequent travelers, harbor a degree of skepticism about the airlines and hotels they frequent.

But it is down-right shocking to learn that 62% of frequent travelers – people who supposedly are savvy, sophisticated and nonchalant about all things related to life on the road – strongly distrust airlines and hotels to adequately protect them from the virus responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic.

Yet, if we’re to believe the results of research done by ExpertFlyer, an online advisory and support service aimed at frequent travelers airlines and hotels don’t just have to climb a mere mountain to win back the trust of many of their best customers; they’ve got to scale mountains of mistrust every bit as high and as daunting as the Himalayas.

“There’s a hunger to get back to business and that means getting back on the road, but there’s a catch. Eighty-one percent of business travelers anticipate traveling in 2021, but 82% of business travelers won’t feel confident traveling until there is some form of a vaccine,” said Jason Wynn, Chief Commercial Officer at Upside Business Travel. Upside, based in Washington, D.C., helps companies manage their travel programs and costs. He and several other industry experts advised ExpertFlyer on how to interpret the survey’s results.

In survey results published earlier this month, ExpertFlyer reported that 62%  of their frequent business traveler survey respondents said they do not trust airlines and hotels to regulate themselves when it comes to adequately performing the cleaning and safety tasks necessary to keep travelers from getting the virus. In effect, that means they would prefer that some outside agency – presumably some sort of government agency – set standards and monitor how well how hotels and air carriers comply with those standards for serving consumers in the Covid-19 era. Results of the survey of more than 1,300 ExpertFlyer subscribers showed that:

• 49% said it would take a vaccine and/or a vaccine with contact tracing for them to start flying again. Thirty-one percent said a proven vaccine would be needed for them to fly again
• Only 37% said they trust the safety standards established by the airlines and hotels themselves, which is the opposite expression of the 62% who said they don’t trust hotels and airlines to do that (with around 1% providing a neutral response)
• 30% said they need there to be some trusted third-party source in the picture – a ratings agency, ratings or reviews by other actual travelers, outside inspectors, etc. – to make them more confident about hotel and airline companies health and safety performance
• 19% said the only thing that would make them more comfortable with the situation would be a cure for Covid-19 or an effective vaccination program
•  13% said they believe new regulations and enforcement producers from the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. Department of Transportation or other federal organization are needed
• A staggering 57% said their companies will reduce or eliminate air travel entirely over the next six to nine months

Results showing such high levels of distrust are understandable given the months of confusion and constantly-changing official and unofficial pronouncements and recommendations regarding the pandemic, its effects, its transmission, and steps to protect against it in virtually all spheres of life. It also makes sense in that airlines and hotels have spent most of this year frantically cutting costs (including by laying off more than 100,000 workers) and finding new sources of capital that they need just to keep from running out of cash.

But such results also are likely at least partly the result of the travel companies’ slowness to recognize that they have completely lost control of the message being sent to the traveling public. And now that they’re beginning to try to re-establish their messaging to travel consumers, travel companies are showing significant inability to agree on and successfully create an easy-to-understand and believable set of messages regarding Covid-19 and travel. Only recently have groups of airlines and hotels begun to form coalitions or quasi-independent organizations to get advertise the idea that they’re safe to use for travelers, and none so far have had any noticeable impact on the market. They also don’t have universal membership. For example, on Wednesday a large group of travel related companies in North America formed a group called Travel Again 2020-2021 to promote the safety of travelers during the Covidi-19 era. But the only North American airlines involved are Southwest, American and Air Canada while Hilton is the only hotel company directly involved.  

For example, airlines and hotels have in recent weeks gingerly begun advertising their use of hospital grade HEPA filters to dramatically limit of contagions like the coronavirus from even making into the space around passengers or guests. But the ExperFlyer study shows that 31% of frequent fliers aren’t sure that combined use of HEPA filters and facemasks is enough to get them to travel again. And another 27% said they weren’t sure if that combination is enough to satisfy them that it’s okay to travel now. To be sure, 42% said those measures are enough to get them traveling again, but even if all of them return immediately to their old high frequency traveling ways that would leave both hotels and airlines woefully short of the number of customers they need to even break even on their operations.

William McGee, an Aviation Advisor at Consumer Reports, who also consulted with ExpertFlyer on interpreting the survey’s results, said skepticism about travel providers’ claims is, to some degree warranted. “While it may be true that every airline in the United States has aircraft with HEPA filters, not every aircraft operating on behalf of those airlines has them,” he said.

Still, despite the high levels of skepticism about the health and safety issues related to flying on airlines and staying in hotels during the pandemic, the survey also showed a very strong desire among business travelers to get back on the road as soon conditions will allow.

ExpertFlyer.com founder Chris Lopinto, said that while many business traveler respondents to the survey agree that “video conferencing has been a great short-term solution for a lack of face-to-face meetings or onsite functions, the majority of respondents feel it won’t replace the value of in-person meetings and gatherings. Many feel that returning to face-to-face engagement will be essential to the long-term success, and even survival, of their jobs.

“So… we get the sense that business travelers are growing a bit anxious and impatient to get back in the air,” he added.

Patrick Fragale, Executive Vice President at Valerie Wilson Travel, which advises corporations on travel management and cost control agreed, saying his company’ “clients are stating that virtual meetings are okay for the short term but unanimously feel that nothing can take the place of in-person relationships and look forward to traveling.”