SARS vs COVID-19: Travel Consumer Behaviour

Do you think the behavior of the Chinese national has changed, in that they want to still go and visit new regions in Europe, in the US? Or do you think there’s been a bit of a behavior change?

It’s too early. It’s really going to depend on the opening up of those countries. It’s a trend that you can anticipate in every country. It’s domestic demand that’s going to be impacted first, even in European countries. French people will discover places around their homes and, in every country, I think that the behavior will be like that, initially. In terms of international travel, the airline sector has been hit so much that the reboot strategies of each airline company is going to be very interesting to follow but I absolutely don’t expect that to go back to what it was, previously, for at least two years.

How would you compare the change in demand post-SARS, versus what you expect post-Covid, today, in terms of the occupancy and RevPAR returning to normal?

Again, during SARS, within one month, after Hong Kong was declared SARS free – because SARS started in Hong Kong – the travel market and the hotel occupancies rebounded back to 70%. The SARS impact was more local than global, compared to Covid. The impact, in terms of cost, was much lower. Somehow, the rapidity with which the contagion was controlled was much quicker and, I believe, that in people’s minds, it was pretty much a Hong Kong and China thing considering that, at that time, the level of communication and the level of transparency was definitely much lower than what it has been this time around.

I think both are comparable, to some extent, but totally incomparable, in terms of impact and recovery scenarios and strategies. I can think of one very simple thing. At that time, the hand sanitizing products, in Hong Kong, were put in all public toilets, in all malls, in all hotels and they were supposed to be extended to mainland China. One year after, you would go to China and there would be no hand sanitizer anywhere, simply because of the owner’s pressure to contain costs and they considered that that kind of expense was unnecessary.

So you think this is really incomparable, in that it’s a global virus. It’s impacted international travel, which has gone to zero. The airlines are under pressure and, therefore, this is going to be a much longer and much harder recovery than it was in SARS?

Absolutely, yes.

What were the other core lessons from your time running hotels, during SARS? You mentioned one, which was don’t mess with the ADR. What else did you really learn from that tough period?