business trips will take two to three years to recover, says president of TAP – Observador
TAP’s Executive President, Christine Ourmières-Widener, said at the Web Summit that business travel will take “two to three years to recover”, also anticipating that the protocols associated with the pandemic will “review to stay”.
“I think business travel today has not returned. We can see this by our numbers. The forecast for the industry is that it will take two to three years to recover”, said Christine Ourmières-Widener at the ‘Corporate Innovation Summit’ stage of the Web Summit, an event that takes place between Monday and Thursday at Altice Arena and FIL, in Lisbon .
The president of TAP said that she is “very optimistic” that “with the evolution of cooperation” with other sectors of the economy, travel will return, adding that, as the realization of the Web Summit in face-to-face or demonstration format, “in the end, people like to meet other people”.
“We are fed up with meetings in Zoom or in Teams”, he vented, predicting that the return to business trips will take place “step by step”.
The manager also considers that the travel protocols implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic “suffer to stay”, warning that companies need to invest more in customer support.
“It has been very difficult times for the stakeholders [da aviação]. I think the protocols implemented to stay, because we will not change these protocols even if people are fully vaccinated”, he said.
For the leader of the flagship airline, the important thing is that “customers feel freedom again”, so that they can “fly when they want to fly, where they want to fly”. To this end, one executive anticipates that the aviation sector will have to “invest a lot more” in customer services, as “the digital experience of the aviation industry is not as smooth as it could be”.
“We have invested in all protocols on board so that our customers feel safe during their journeys. This has been a big investment, but now we have to take the next step”, emphasizes.
Christine Ourmières-Widener had already stated that during a pandemic there was a “great increase in access to ‘online’ channels in the industry”, something that “has grown a lot”.
“We know we have to do our best to provide this end-to-end experience,” acknowledged the manager.
The Web Summit takes place between November 1st and 4th in Lisbon, in person, after the last edition was ‘online’ and the organization expects around 40 thousand participants, as revealed in Paddy Cosgrave, executive president of the summit.
Comedian Amy Poehler, Microsoft President Brad Smith, European Commissioner Margrethe Vestager and footballer Gerard Pique will join more than 1,000 speakers, around 1,250 startups, 1,500 journalists and more than 700 investors, at a summit where topics such as technology and society, among others, will be discussed, according to the organization.
Despite the expected number of visitors this year to be around 30,000 less than in the last in-person edition, in 2019, the authorities consider that this is the “largest event of 2021” to take place in Lisbon.