Emirates Airline president Sir Tim Clark is confident business travel will not only return to pre-pandemic levels, but believes the Dubai-based carrier can grow in that sector, despite technology taking over during the current coronavirus crisis.
As countries closed their borders to curb the spread of Covid-19, the aviation industry saw flights grounded en masse, with businesses forced to turn to applications such as Zoom and Google Teams to keep in contact with staff, customers and clients.
Silicon Valley-based Zoom said it made a profit of $186 million on revenue of $663.5m in the quarter that ended on July 31.That compares with a net income of $5.5m in the same quarter a year earlier.
Experts had predicted this may lead to a drop of as much as 30 percent in business travel in the ‘new normal’. However, Sir Tim disagreed and pointed towards previous instances in recent history when similar predictions were made and subsequently proved false.
And he told CNN’s new series Think Big that business travel is in line for a major rebound.
“What has happened is that as a result of being locked down, as a result of having to engage in the networks that you see, whether it be Zoom, Teams or whatever. And I saw it in the mid ’90s, when we digitised the global economy and all these tools came to market. The digital world ruled, the age of information came along, and everybody said you know what’s going to happen? We’re not really going to travel anymore. We won’t want to do this. And actually, we can do much more of what we wanted to do over the…
“The converse happened. Between 1995 and 2015, 2018. The demand for business travel grew exponentially. As we get back to normal, as the economy is strengthened, as cash starts flowing back into the businesses that’ve been affected. You’ll forget all of that, as they always do. We’ll start see business travel, bounce back, and we’ll see it grow. It will not slow down.”
His comments come as a recent survey showed that travel procurement teams in the Middle East are still busy in their roles managing the interpretation of airline and hotel supply changes over the recent months.
The carrier received $2 billion in support from Dubai’s government, and saw a $5 billion swing from profitability to loss in the latest quarter.
Clark said earlier this week that he expects Emirates to return to positive cash flow in the first half of 2021.
Ciaran Kelly, managing director and regional leader of FCM Travel Solutions for the Middle East and Africa, told our sister publication CEO: “Before we start to believe work from home and the virtual world is the ‘new norm’, we ought to remember the importance of face to face meetings that are facilitated through business travel as a key method to build rapport, relationships and trust, go with our gut feelings and the general likeability we build with people which many have not yet mastered in the virtual world when pitching from scratch with someone you have never met in person.
“The virtual world has been the saviour for many companies but the longer term need to travel within the Middle East region and longer-haul is an important step to business travel recovery,” he said.He added: “It’s obvious that pre-Covid-19 business travel levels will take a while to return to the same level, but we forecast an acceleration at some point in the region, as businesses will face increased pressure to win and retain business among key clients after peers begin travelling again.”
“Business travel will continue to play an important role in a company’s strategy and growth, despite the virtual world we have found ourselves submerged in due to Covid-19.”
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