| | DECEMBER 20209THIS LARGELY MILLENNIAL TREND OF BUDGET TRAVEL IS NOW UNDER SCRUTINY AS THE AFFORDABILITY OF BUDGET TRAVEL ALSO BRINGS WITH IT AN INCREASE IN HUMAN TOUCHPOINTS VIA CROWDED AIRCRAFTS, PUBLIC HOSTELS, GROUP TRAVEL PACKAGES, LOCAL PUBLIC TRANSPORTvacations no longer were an elusive concept to those on a budget. However, this largely millennial trend of budget travel is now under scrutiny as the affordability of budget travel also brings with it an increase in hu-man touchpoints via crowded aircrafts, public hostels, group travel packages, and local public transport. Un-til there is a fool-proof way of ensuring that these pub-lic spaces are sanitised and are safe, travelling might revert to being a bit of an exclusive experience for some time. Personalised tech with online payments and digital solutionsAn essential part of travel planning, i.e. the purchase of services or tickets/passes for everything from spe-cific in-country tourist attractions to flights, could see a sea change, as people start moving most of their transactions and purchases online. Personalised ser-vices that allow consumers to plan their travel with increased flexibility and digital solutions that let them do so remotely will be immensely popular. An added layer will be the need for remote planning of travel, with as few human touchpoints as possible. In terms of visa applications, this change is already coming into play with ahead-of-the-curve services and options like eVisas and `doorstep' services for the visa application submission and biometric enrolment process, as well as pre-departure COVID-19 RT-PCR testing, among other services, to make travel planning a seamless and hassle-free experience for consumers. Longer vacationsWith most people working from home for the last six months and more, some popular tourist locations have come up with concepts such as `Digital Nomad Visas'. The concept promotes the idea of remote work-ing while being at picturesque locations, to help peo-ple take a break from the mundane while they're still on the company clock. With the intricacy of planning that will be in-volved in ensuring a safe vacation post-COVID, peo-ple will increasingly see merit in spending a longer time away. Couple that with the possibility of work-ing remotely while on a refreshing beach or amidst scenic mountains and you have yourself a possibly indefinite holiday.Seek out the open spacesSince confined spaces offer a higher chance of con-tracting infections, travellers are now expected to ex-plore locations beyond the usual urban tourist attrac-tions. Which means museums, monuments, and art galleries will now be given a miss in favour of country-side explorations, vineyards, and trekking trails. This also means that we might see a big shift to second-city travelling, as travellers opt to avoid larger, and thereby more crowded, cities to visit more sparsely populated towns and countrysides. Pandemic insuranceMost travellers who had to cancel flight and hotel bookings post the lockdown earlier this year were in for a rude shock - that their travel insurance did not cover a pandemic. Reading the fine print of financial statements is an often ignored practice, and most paid a heavy price for that this holiday season, even if this was something none of us could have anticipated. However, this has created a higher awareness in both the travel and insurance communities, as well as multiplied the caution with which travellers will now approach their travel insurance. In addition, travel insurance will now also be a more customised affair to accommodate needs specific to individuals, as op-posed to the one-size-fits-all concept that it once was. Even with all these uncertainties around us, there is no doubt about the fact that travel will pick up pace in the coming months. All that will change is the way governments, travel companies and travellers plan for safety and public health - the new cornerstones that the travel sector rests on.
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