e are accustomed to referring to the
travel business as a resilient business whose people bounce back
from adversity. We expect recovery. We take it as a given that as
the economic and political climate improves, travel demand will
return to "normal" and resume its upward curve.
Taking the long view, we travel people are accustomed to
reassuring ourselves that as income levels rise with economic
growth and development, people everywhere will have more leisure
time and more money to spend on travel. We are a growth industry.
Our future is bright.
This is the conventional wisdom. Like most conventional wisdom,
it's pretty good -- as far as it goes. But like most conventional
wisdom, it rests on certain assumptions. When the assumptions crack
and crumble, the conventional wisdom gets turned on its ear.
The way to stay ahead of the conventional wisdom is to watch for
those cracks.
Time will tell whether the following questions reflect hairline
cracks or just the light playing tricks on us, but we have to
ask:
Travel may always bounce back, but shouldn't we ask ourselves
why it keeps getting knocked down?
Why does it sometimes seem to take so little to make travelers
stay at home? Why should war in Iraq keep people away from the
beaches of the Caribbean and Hawaii? Is our vaunted resilience just
the flipside of fragility? Has this always been such a
"fair-weather" business?
Can travel sellers and travel marketers afford to rest on the
notion that the natural demand for travel will always be strong? If
travel can lose its allure during a recession, a war or during
outbreaks of terrorism or disease, could it lose it for good?
We still may be a growth industry, but are we merely growing
with the pie, or is travel still able to increase its share of
global spending?
At one time, the air transportation industry in the U.S. grew at
a greater rate than the Gross Domestic Product, but that stopped
happening some years ago and the airline component of the economy
leveled off at just under 1% of the GDP. Will the broader travel
industry follow the same path?
Will travel marketers have to promote ever more aggressively to
reach that bright future?
These may be unpleasant questions, but they are the kinds of
questions that have to be asked from time to time -- and
answered.
Our instincts tell us the conventional wisdom still is sound for
the long term, but we would be interested in hearing your
views.
Drop us a letter to the editor and tell us, is the light playing
tricks on us or are there really some cracks in the conventional
wisdom?
And if there be cracks, what must the travel industry do to keep
from falling down?