Mark Simpson hosts Terry Whyte, Na'im Payman, and David Jacoby on 2021 travel predictions. Whyte warns March and April could be especially bad due to new COVID strains. Payman announces Zebu will offer free Google Hotel Ads access to independent hospitality providers.
Questions this video answers
February 27, 2021.
Terry Whyte.
Zebu will be providing completely free access to Google hotel ads to help boost direct bookings.
Hostfully's reports are available at hostfully.com (click on Reports).
Chapters
Having a blast gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee like Bruce Lee Cause it's so hard and the tea is loose leaf Licking up those rhymes don't write it, just do it loosely if you want my respect you'll better put direct Here are the words in the podcast. That's what comes next.
What would your predictions be for the rest of 2021? And obviously Dave Richard's obviously speaking based in the UK and obviously you're in Canada, property in USA. How, how do you see it that side of the pond? So we speak.
Domestic travel is king for sure. The airlines will remain on life support to the end of the year. I think the worst of the COVID is in front of us. March and April are going to be horrendous. The new strains are going to cause a tremendous problem and just in the infection rate. I'm not saying that the vaccines are going to be effective against it. I'm just going to say the transmission is just going to be out of this world. I see at the national level, the United States never had a national strategy. They didn't listen to science, they didn't listen to the scientists. I think with the different administration now they're going to listen to the scientists, to the science. I think there's going to be a shutdown coming again. And I think 2021 is purely domestic trouble and nobody's doing the United States. They're having real challenges on their vaccine rollout. No, I don't think any country is doing a worse job in the world at the vaccine rollout than Canada is. So, you know, we've got some big challenges coming here.
Well, I'd hate to be wrong. So I'll start off by saying what I'm really certain about is that my travel in 2021 will not involve a private helicopter, private jet, maybe 2022. We'll have to wait and see. But something that actually I wanted to mention earlier, the big five didn't include Google. And I think that over the next year we will see Google move to the forefront of travel with the launch of a number of interesting things that are coming up and I hope that independent hospitality providers will rally up and use the tools that are not quite out there yet. But we will be putting out there fairly soon. Free for everyone. The only two people who really know about this are Terry and Mark. And you're both on the call so the rest can hear about it. But Zebu will be providing completely free access to Google hotel ads for anyone who wants to boost the direct bookings. So if we work together and get the inventory on Zebu Direct and get it out there, as I think Richard was mentioning, we'll be able to block the inventory on all the OTAs and just get booking engines, booking engines working and direct bookings flowing.
All right, so piggybacking off of what you said with direct bookings, I'll do a quick plug for our annual hospitality report. Every year, we survey hundreds of property managers and ask them a whole bunch of questions and put out a pretty cool report so you can see what the benchmarks are and how you compare against other property managers and direct bookings. There was a big increase in that, and that's only going to continue, I think, with the. The big cancellation wave With Airbnb earlier in the year, people have realized not to put all their eggs in one basket. And I know I'm preaching to the choir on this Mark. So folks can go to hostfully.com and click on reports and see that report and a lot of others. But in addition to that, flexibility is still going to remain flexible. Cancellation policies, I mean, by that, and both with airfare as well as, you know, booking vacation rentals, it's going to be now that everyone is doing that, it's going to be hard to be the first one to take it away. So I think that's going to persist for a while, to airline chagrin especially. And also, as Richard commented towards the end of the year, once this herd immunity starts to happen, and knock on wood, it will happen sometime this year. Urban vacation rentals, they've been decimated, but they're going to come back really strong. People are wanting to not be in urban places right now, but they're missing it. And once it's safe to do that, urban vacation rentals are going to be big.
Whoa. Having a blast. Gonna get it on the Boost Lee podcast. Bruce Lee, Like Bruce Lee, because it's so hard and the T is loosely making up those rhymes. Don't write it, just do it loosely.
