The Biggest Innovators in Travel and Hospitality: Covid Edition
Photo Credit: Outdoor pool at Four Seasons Surfside in Miami. Four Seasons / Christian Horan
Skift Take
Crisis showed once again how it can breed creativity and excellence. Here are the people, the properties, and the trends that have stood out as bright beacons in a very bad year.
On Experience
Colin Nagy is a marketing strategist and writes on customer-centric experiences and innovation across the luxury sector, hotels, aviation, and beyond. You can read all of his writing here.
I don’t need to rehash the implications of the past year for travel. This has been endlessly documented. But I saw a lot of reasons to be incredibly optimistic about the future. Every year, I select the best things I see on the road and also outline the friction points and things that need to be improved. I've curtailed my normal nit-pickings this year, focusing instead on the bright rays of creativity under duress. Many brands, properties, and teams used the pandemic as a forcing factor to get better, to try out new things, and to iterate. So, here’s a rundown of the great things I witnessed. Onwards!
BEST DOMESTIC AIRLINE
I moved my longstanding, million-mile allegiance to American Airlines over to Delta. The reason? The brand stood above the pack in terms of its approach to Covid. Planes on every flight were spotless, cleaning protocols were well communicated and their middle seat open social spacing strategy put the consumer first. It is no wonder their net promoter score
