While we’re starting to travel again, we see a lot of focus on the hotel industry and airlines, but are we looking at how travel operators are faring? These are an integral part of organised travel, which is a crucial aspect of the overall industry.
The pandemic and ensuing lockdowns would have dealt a devasting blow to most, but as things are starting to look brighter, how are the changes going to impact us all. We speak to Mike Harlow, the general manager of luxury travel operator Scott Dunn about being a travel operator in the evolving travel industry.
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Scott Dunn is a luxury tour operator with over 30 years of experience organising and planning luxury travel experiences for people around the world. They provide travel consultancy and build luxury holiday experiences for people to all parts of the world including Africa, India & Arabia, Europe, Latin America, the Far East, the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean.
Here’s what Mike had to share with us.
As we open up travel, there seems to be a lot of uncertainty around the requirements? How long do you foresee this continuing?
The pandemic brought about new layers of admin and made pre-planning more crucial, reinforcing the value of luxury tour operators such as Scott Dunn as we were able to provide fuss-free and seamless travel at an elevated level. Guests relied heavily on us for destination advice and to fill them in on the requirements and any updates prior to their departures or their return home.
With the recent simplification of travel measures for vaccinated travellers, it has become easier and more straightforward to travel and return home to Singapore. This also means there are many more destination options for holidays since countries are no longer classified into different tiers with varying levels of SHN requirements. It’s a great step to transitioning back to a “normal” travel world that we were used to in pre-covid times.
Requirements for vaccination are likely to be around for some time but I am optimistic that COVID tests, mask mandates and any quarantine requirements to enter destinations will eventually subside over the course of 2022.
How do travel operators like Scott Dunn stay ahead of the constant changes and updates?
Having been in the industry for more than 30 years, we have built up a solid global network of partners and suppliers which allows us to stay in the know and get up-to-date local advice.
Often, we get an inkling of movements or shifts in regulations and even general unannounced sentiments on the ground from our partners as well as tourism boards. The verified first-hand information allows us to then advise and assist our guests accordingly.
Guest safety has always been a number one priority here and the Scott Dunn team also has years of experience successfully managing unexpected global situations; from natural disasters like the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull to cyclones and even SARS, so we are well versed in keeping up and managing any changes or updates in the world of travel.
In fact, we have a 24/7 emergency hotline that was set up to assist guests in unpredictable times. We understand how stressful it can be and we always ensure there’s someone from our team to speak to and assist a guest no matter where they are and what time it is.
As a global company with offices around the world (editor’s note: Scott Dunn has offices in the US, UK and Singapore), we’ve also been able to take key learnings from the UK and US markets which have entered the recovery phase earlier and prepare ourselves for the eventual return of travel in this part of the world.
What are some of the main changes you’re seeing from travellers? How has their behaviour evolved?
In the initial months when Vaccine Travel Lane (VTL) schemes were introduced, destinations that travellers picked were usually from the VTL list and travel lead times were extremely short (booking to departure times varied from a few days to 1-2 weeks compared to 3 to 6 months from booking to departure in pre-covid times). As we’ve now transitioned to a simple framework for travel with no more restrictions on destinations as well as return quarantine requirements, we’re starting to see lead times starting to shift back to how they were pre-covid in our enquiry numbers.
Where do you expect the travel and tourism industry around the world to be in 2023?
2022 will be a year where more and more people start to test the waters and venture out depending on their risk appetites. So if things continue to progress and no new variants of concern emerge, we hope for a complete recovery by 2023. Most people will continue to remain cautious but as we’ve seen in parts of the world that have reopened fully and dropped all restrictions and measures, that life quickly goes back to how it was pre-covid.
We do expect the luxury travel segment to continue to grow and strengthen especially as numbers of UHNW continue to climb in Asia and as affluent consumers become more open and recognize the value of engaging a tour operator who acts as a trusted travel guardian in uncertain times while providing dedicated end-to-end service.
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What’s next for Scott Dunn?
As travel continues to ramp up, my team and I are excited to help guests get away safely and explore the world again. It’s very encouraging to see our enquiry numbers rebounding strongly and the number of guest departures growing significantly in the past 6 months.
With this in mind, we have been and will continue to recruit and grow our team based here in Singapore. Our people are at the heart of what we do and aside from growing the team, I am very keen to stay ahead of the curve and ensure that our travel specialists have first-hand and on-the-ground experience, especially since the luxury travel landscape has developed so much in the past 2 years. We’ve made plans for our team to be able to travel out and engage with our partners as well as experience the products we offer.
I (as well as most of Singapore from what I’ve heard) am eagerly waiting for Japan to reopen. It’s always been one of our top destinations and we are currently working to include exciting new areas, properties and experiences in our offerings. We’re excited to see how we can further elevate our guests’ experiences in this spectacular and considerably close-by destination.
