Internova Travel Group executives believe travel volumes will increase throughout the remainder of the year and that trend will continue into next. Volumes are not likely to reach pre-Covid-19 levels until 2022 or 2023, though.
They spoke during a panel at CoNexion 2020, Nexion Travel Group's annual conference, held virtually this year. Nexion is an Internova-owned host agency. Nexion president Jackie Friedman was the moderator of the panel.
"I honestly believe we'll have better therapies, potentially a vaccine, by the end of the year, and predicated on that, it will turn into basically another post-9/11 event," said John Lovell, president of Internova business unit Travel Leaders Group.
Capacity will still be an issue going forward, Lovell said, but by the end of 2021, he predicted, the cruise industry will hover at around 45-50% of 2019 travel volumes. Getting into 2022 and 2023, things will return to 2019 levels.
"But I do believe a lot of this hinges on good therapies and a vaccine, which I know we're pretty close to If we get that, then it should be a strong 2021 for everybody," he said.
Peter Vlitas, Internova's senior vice president of airline relations, said he is seeing steady growth in air travel week over week to the tune of "no more than 1-2%."
Volumes should return to 30-40% of pre-Covid levels by the end of 2020, Vlitas said, increasing to 60% by the second quarter of 2021. He doesn't believe air travel volumes will be greater than that because it will take time for airlines to return mothballed aircraft to their fleets.
Vlitas also said the industry is closely watching Europe and when Americans will be able to freely travel there again.
"Internova is very much involved with a project to open up Europe, and we're hoping to have some good news within the next two weeks," Vlitas said.
The company has spoken with government organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.K.'s National Health Service.
"We're hoping that there's going to be a tremendous amount of movement, and we're in that pilot program," he said. "Matter of fact, it was Internova with some other partners that led the way to begin that discussion."
Friedman predicted that when travel volumes do return to meaningful levels, advisors will be busy.
"Travel advisors are going to be stronger and more important than ever," she said. "If we learned one thing from this pandemic, it's that those consumers who did not have you in their corner really wish that they had."