A great summer for travel?

Surprise! After a dismal spring for travelers – one marked by intrusive airport security searches, fluctuating air fares, and more fears of domestic terrorism – experts tell us we’re about to have one of the best summer travel seasons on the books.

Airports will be less crowded. Prices for everything from hotels to airline tickets will remain reasonable, and we may even see some healthy discounts. For the first time since Sept. 11, many Americans will get out of town and take a well-deserved vacation. In a survey conducted by Protocol Communications, a Danvers, Mass., research firm, 57 percent of leisure travelers said they were relatively unconcerned about safety in the wake of the terrorist attacks.

Let’s hope the experts are right. If they are, then this will be a season unlike any we’ve had in a while – quieter, saner, more civilized than summers past. Let’s also hope that the travel industry remembers what made it great: not just low prices and fewer crowds, but a genuine appreciation of the traveler. Because having a good summer wouldn’t just represent a nice break from the past; it could ensure the long-term survival of a business that until very recently was near collapse.

The travel industry needs a good summer badly. Every sector of the business is struggling to see its way past a downturn precipitated by a soft economy, a terrorism scare and traveler apathy. Domestic airlines lost $7 billion last year. Hotel industry revenues dropped by 4.8 percent. Total travel expenditures – a measure of other sectors, such as car rental, cruises and other tourism-related activities, slipped 7.6 percent, according to the Travel Industry Association of America, a trade group. The travel business is hurting.

There’s more than a pleasant vacation at stake for you, too. The travel industry is a pillar of the American economy. The Department of Commerce estimates that travel and tourism generated more than $90 billion in export revenue and provided a $7.7 billion balance of trade surplus last year. It generated $94 billion in tax revenue to local, state, and federal governments. As one of the nation’s largest employers, travel and tourism supports more than seven million jobs.

There are aspects of a positive summer travel experience, such as fuel prices, that the travel business has no power to change. But there are things that it can indeed control, and they go beyond offering reduced rates or special amenities, like room upgrades or two-for-one deals. It’s the smile on your flight attendant’s face, the follow-up call from your travel agent to make sure you had a good vacation, the hotel concierge who goes out of his way to make your stay a pleasant one. In other words, the little things that can mean a lot.

You’ll probably see more of it this summer because the travel industry is grateful that you’ve come back.

Unfortunately, the executives who run the airlines, hotels, cruise lines and car rental agencies of the world are oblivious to the link between their profits and a smile or the extra effort put out by a front-line employee. They believe that a tried-and-true formula of cutting costs will raise earnings – which, no doubt, it will in the short term.

But what about the long term? Will those same employees be able to smile after they’ve had their benefits cut? Can an airline or travel agency with low morale have satisfied customers – the kind that will come back again next year, and the year after?

If this summer is a good one for the travel industry then we can only hope that the business takes some of its simple lessons to heart. Because there’s much more at stake than the survival of a few weakened airlines, hotels and cruise lines. It’s a once-healthy sector of the American economy that’s been throttled by shortsighted management and tragic circumstances, that’s in play.

Let’s hope for a good summer. And more like it.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

Be the first to comment