Five Years After: The Day the World Stopped Traveling
Photo Credit: An empty Times Square in March 2020. Flickr / Brecht Bug
Skift Take
Disruption either forces transformation or accelerates what was already in motion. In the case of travel, Covid was an acceleration.
March 17th: A significant day, and not just because it’s the opening night of Skift India Forum here in Delhi. Five years ago, almost to the day, the travel industry came to a screeching halt.
On March 14, 2020, I wrote an essay titled “The Day the World Stopped Traveling” — an attempt to capture, in real time, the sheer magnitude of what was unfolding. I posted it on the 15th, and by the 17th, the world had changed in ways we couldn’t yet fully grasp. Countries locked down, borders slammed shut, airlines grounded, and an industry built on movement found itself frozen.
Our own office in New York shut down, never to return. We became a fully remote company, like so many others. And now, here in India, looking back at these five years, I find myself asking: What did we learn? What did we fail to learn? And what actually changed?
At the Skift India Forum, we’ll unpack these questions. The good, the bad, and the things that were supposed to cha
