Travel Megatrends 2021: Product Mediocrity Seeds a New Era of Travel Industry Disruption
Nadia Sgaramella
Skift Take
If airlines and hotels end up cutting back too much, they would risk providing plenty of opportunities for new companies to emerge, fill gaps, and gobble up market share. But a faster recovery in corporate travel would make this issue moot for a lot of companies.
While some hotels and airlines hobbled through to the other side of the crisis, leaving many corporate casualties behind them, in 2025 they look very different than they did before. In fact, there is a wave of mediocrity that characterizes product and service levels throughout portions of the travel experience.
The hotel lobby experience is less personal than it was pre-pandemic due to the industry migrating toward contactless features, including mobile check-in and check-out functions from smartphone apps. Hotels sliced labor costs, especially for housekeeping. Daily cleaning and various room services are no longer standard across all segments of the market, especially more affordable brands geared toward leisure travelers and drive-to markets.
Legacy airlines gutted point-to-point routes over the last five years in favor of se
