Tobias Ragge, Chief Executive Officer of HRS

06/08/20 • 29 min

HRS Chief Executive Officer Tobias Ragge is more optimistic than many of his peers. Providing a vaccine is developed, he suspects we could see the hospitality industry operating at 80% of 2019 levels as early as next year—not 2024 as many pundits predict. He also suspects this pandemic may have changed us more profoundly than we realise. In addition to business leaders operating more conservatively for a time, he expects the general public to emerge from time spent in quarantine with fundamental questions about life, work and the meaning of it all. This sort of paradigm shift could send ripples through society.
He says now is the time for organisations to sharpen their value proposition, as those that are able to showcase their value are the ones that will survive this pandemic. The one-million-dollar question: whether it’s the bigger hospitality brands that survive, or there’s a proliferation of distinctive, smaller brands.

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Jesper Palmqvist, Area Director – Asia Pacific

In the midst of the current global crisis, everyone is looking for answers and accurate, up-to-the minute data is key, says Jesper Palmqvist, STR Area Director – Asia Pacific. Talking to David, he explains that their role at STR is to make the unpredictable as predictable as possible, by sourcing and blending different data points to draw meaningful conclusions. This includes looking at how certain destinations dealt with past crises, as well as learning from those countries opening up first, such as China and, more recently, Vietnam and Thailand.
Jesper acknowledges, however, that can you cannot take a one-size-fits-all approach, as each country will emerge from this differently. While some markets may recover faster, he says that this recovery will be U-shaped rather than V-shaped, with most Asian markets not returning to 2019 business levels until 2024.

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Abdulla Ghiyas, Chair, PATA Chapter, Maldives

As little as 50 years ago, the Maldives was nearly written off as a tourism destination due to the remote, inaccessible nature of its 1,200 tiny islands. Now, tourism leaders like Abdulla Ghiyas, former president of the Maldives Association of Travel Agents and Tour Operators, are hoping the country’s biggest disadvantage will become its greatest selling point. In a post-lockdown, pre-vaccine world, he believes the country’s one-island, one-resort set-up is perfectly suited for isolation and social distancing.
Abdulla talks to David about how the country is preparing for a planned reopening to foreign arrivals on 1 July. He acknowledges that some source markets will take longer than others to return, but says that, with the right cooperation from airlines, travel operators and foreign ministries, they can offer a safe and welcoming environment.