Travel ✈️ To Freedom
The borders 🌉 between Singapore and Malaysia will be reopened for quarantine-free travel at scale from November 29.
This will be the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began rapidly worsening 📉 in March last year.
For a start, travellers will be able to fly 🛫 between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur under the Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) scheme. The land borders at the Causeway and the Second Link are expected to reopen soon as well, with talks 🗣 now at an advanced stage.
As 2021 pushes on and vaccines are on their way around the globe 🌎, the end is in sight for this pandemic if you use a long lens. However, even as jabs 💉 in the arm are ramping up, 2021 promises to be a year filled with uncertainty, as the ups and downs continue to vary by week and by geography.
Last year was a rollercoaster 🎢 of outbreaks and misinformation about how to control the virus and the economy.
This yo-yo 🪀 of on-again, off-again restrictions forced families and businesses to adapt, adapt, and adapt again. As the infection waves 🌊 came to each country and region at different times, 2020 was characterised by the shock of forced change, along with the insecurity of not knowing what would come next.
For many large businesses, 2020 turned out to be the best and the worst of times. Services like Zoom, Peloton and food delivery lit 🔥 up, while CPGs and other manufacturers saw rapid demand for household toilet paper 🧻, sourdough yeast, puzzles, and bikes. Face masks became the new toothpaste - without which people would not let you get close to them. Insider Intelligence charted the winners 🏆 and losers of 2020 here.
Besides, the hardest hit 💥 sector - travel and hospitality - will continue to struggle with 2021’s continued uncertainty. Restaurant, hotel, and transportation companies saw demand plummet, and the recovery is expected to be slow 🐌. International travel is still very limited, and domestic travel is barely achieving the pessimistic forecasts for a recovery this year. With the rare exception of AirBnB, few firms that cater to business travel still do not know when people will return.
Here are the 3 things marketers need to do to survive the year like travel marketers:
1️⃣ Practice real-time ⏰ agility
The term “real-time” has been tossed around a lot over the past few decades, as marketing has been able to get closer and closer to messaging 📱 at the moment of truth for each consumer. However, it means so much more in our current environment, where every day there are temporary lockdowns 🔒 or openings that require adjustments on a very local and timely basis. The good news is that it is all possible. Tools allow you to gather customer insights at scale and vary your messages and alerts 🔔 to stay on top of real-time rule changes.
2️⃣ Adapt contextual relevance to local perspectives 👀
The goal is often to find the one message that resonates across the widest audience 👥 as marketers, but what happens when models that define “look-alikes” do not work because there are local and behavioural overlays that are hard to model? Find 🤔 new ways to get a read on customer sentiment by locality and other demographics.
Also, look at the data with an eye to vaccine penetration, age distribution, and location data to understand if a target 🎯 segment is observing stay-at-home requests or is free to interact. Do this so that your message is aligned and well-received.
3️⃣ Take random opportunities to lead
You cannot tell what is going to be in demand next. Hence, do not wait ✋ for it; make it happen. Take a look at your products or services and use a broad range of messages, and offer testing 🧪 to look for signs of emerging opportunity. Tourist-dependent locations 📍 took charge and turned their focus from recruiting beyond the local area to getting local residents to participate in modified events, realising that people should not travel but relish the thought of an adventure near home 🏠.
Are you looking forward to travelling again? Let us know in the comments below 👇👇👇😎.
References:
Abhyankar, A. 2021, May 6. A Lesson In Marketing Agility: Surviving Travel’s Turbulent Recovery. Forbes.
Wei, T. T. 2021, November 19. S'pore's vaccinated travel lane with Malaysia: What you need to know. The Straits Times.
