Disclaimer:
These are not the opinions of my employer, AWS, and the only purpose of this newsletter is to share, learn through sharing, and foster some honest discourse in the community at large.
First off - damn I miss it.
One thing that always helped me to survive Singapore was the optionality of getting on a flight and just going somewhere else. I enjoy the airport, I enjoy the flight, and I love landing and arriving in a new place to hang out. Even if it is just a hotel. I actually prefer hotels cause of location and service. I don’t want to have to clean up or take care of my own shit since I do that at home everyday. I like ordering room service, leaving for breakfast and coming back to a clean room.
It’s an escape.
So what now? I can’t escape. It’s driving me nuts.
But the bigger question is what will happen to travel when we get back to normal? One could even pontificate what the new normal is. I am with Stuart, of https://www.travelfish.org/, on this one that lots of cheap travel probably has not been good for lots of places but we do know it is a source of income for many, many people.
Side note - check out Stuart’s latest email subscription newsletter - its really good and keeping my travel desires alive and kicking :: https://couchfish.substack.com/.
My best guess is when countries feel like the coast is clear they will turn on domestic flights and that might mean people will try to be tourists in their own country for a while which feels like a cool thing. Problem for me is that doesn’t help in Singapore but if I lived in say Vietnam or Thailand - I would have so much to see and do.
Over time countries will start to turn on regional travel but I am sure it will come with caveats but how will they be enforced? Temperature checks will be with us for a long time and I assume some other types of checks might be designed to help figure out who has COVID and who doesn’t. One hopes for a flu shot or vaccine for this and that would mean having to get it and prove you have it. What proof will work and cannot be easily forged? The mind boggles.
Will folks even want to travel if they still think it could mean they are in COVID danger? I think I won’t want to for a while but at some point work will need business travel and folks will want to see relatives. I suspect that will drive more initial travel than leisure travel for a while. But of course companies are going to have to decide when they will give the green light to business travel and my guess is that they will be cautious and wait longer than countries giving the green light.
The bigger worry though is all the businesses that won’t survive something they have never encountered before, a total shutdown in movement. Plenty of startups, restaurants, tour companies, travel agents and any little connected business you can think of will shutdown. I cannot comprehend the total size of this impact and how many years - yes the years it will take for it to come back.
I am not sure one can do anything about it. There is no economic package you can dream up that fixes this problem. I am all ears if I am missing a solution to this. But it seems pretty hopeless.
The upside of all of this - Mother Earth is getting a much needed break from planes, trains, automobiles and people traipsing all over the place. Part of me thinks this is a huge blessing and might wake some of us up to the damage we have caused. We all tend to prioritize money over everything else. When it comes to travel that is now decided for us and it looks like Mother Earth is pretty happy about it.
I suspect our first trip will be to see relatives in Thailand.
Happy Easter!
It might but with an economic downturn maybe they will not have as many people bouncing back so fast. Hard to say. Hopefully it spurns a lot of local travel and support of local businesses first. Have a good Easter!
The last part especially resonates with me although i fear that when we have managed to flatten or even squash the curve, the pent up demand for travel could be unleashed. Still, amidst the annoyance of having to stay in (coz it's the right thing to do), i am finding more time for podcasts, discovering new music, and ironically connecting more with people albeit virtually. Blessed Easter to you and your family too!