On 14 July, Gary Bowerman joined regular hosts John Grant and Becca Rowland on the monthly OAG Webinar.
OAG’s insight-driven travel and aviation webinar has been running since March 2020. The July 2021 edition was titled How to manage supply as air travel demand picks up. The show addressed four central themes:
- Latest airline capacity information from around the world
- The impact of crew shortages on schedules
- Evolution of operations by time of day
- How airlines, car rental companies and hotels are using pricing as a tool.
We also analysed the month’s key travel, tourism and aviation developments across Asia Pacific, including the Australia-New Zealand travel bubble, domestic travel in China and the Tokyo Olympics.
Halfway through the third quarter of 2021, John, Becca and Gary also assessed the outlook for international tourism in Asia Pacific.
Looking into the future, there were some juicy insights on hotel and self-drive travel marketing in the region.
The OAG webinar benefits from accurate, up-to-date international travel data. The above slide sparked a lively debate about how vaccination rates, diverse population sizes and government strategies might determine the immediate future of passenger aviation in Asia Pacific.
However, immense challenges exist in the near-term, as Gary summarised:
“Inter-regional travel is so important in Asia Pacific and everyone is watching each other at the moment. Generally there just seems to be low levels of trust, very different rates of vaccination, very different rates of managing Covid-19… It’s an enduring holding pattern and there seems to be no end to it”