April 21, 2020 - 09:29 BST Megan Bull Director of Content at The Points Guy UK, Nicky Kelvin shares his thoughts with HELLO! on what the future of travel will look like and how we will navigate this 'new normal' way of travelling. "When the coronavirus releases its grip and we slowly start to emerge from quarantine, the world we see won't look the same as it did before we entered lockdown in March 2020," he says.
This is already becoming a reality with Etihad announcing its participation in developing and testing passenger kiosks that will check temperature, heart and respiratory rates. The popularity of destinations is going to depend hugely on how the global shutdown retreats. We could see a rush of travel to the first places that open up, but equally, many people are likely to stick closer to home in the short term.
We are already seeing some great deals for flights for later in the year, and overall I think we will see a plethora of amazing deals coming to the market in the next few months. We'll book direct We could also see a shift away from online and traditional travel agents in some cases where people may want to take advantage of deals available directly with airlines and hotel groups, and ease of dealing with issues if things go majorly wrong again, as there have been many complaints of middle men making refunds and changes more difficult.