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In an interview with “NZZ am Sonntag”, Laura Meyer, CEO of Hotelplan Gourp from Zurich, reveals some aspects of how her company and travel in general developed and will continue to develop during and after the pandemic.
The boss is satisfied with the summer business this year, even if it could of course have been better. “In 2021, we will effectively achieve over 50% of 2019, operationally to 40%. With these figures, we’re not in a bad position in the industry. “
Hotelplan behaved very fairly throughout the crisis, “nobody lost money with us,” Meyer continued. Repayments were even partially pre-financed by the group when the airlines had not yet paid out the money. Among other things, this certainly indicates that Hotelplan has rather gained market share, even if this cannot be conclusively proven with figures.
When asked about the test and vaccination quotas, she sees her company as obliged to support the authorities with all means in implementing measures – but the “rules of the game” would be set by the BAG. The task of the travel industry is to «enable travel within the framework of the applicable rules. And we did a good job in this regard ».
Meyer sees the short-term booking and the flexible cancellation conditions as part of the process for the long term and of course wants to meet this customer need. Also with a view to sustainability, some of the travel behavior patterns on the part of customers resulting from the pandemic would certainly remain in the future. For example, even after the pandemic, closer destinations would be booked more intensively, while expensive long-distance trips would probably be sold in the future with less frequency and with longer travel times.
According to Laura Meyer, beach holidays will probably always be booked as the largest segment, while long-distance trips will tend to be less. In addition, «non-flight offers such as multi-stop train travel must also be taken into account, which is also in line with the issue of sustainability.» Hotelplan still had such good numbers with trips within Switzerland and England as this year.
Since the industry was generally well supported during short-time work, there have not yet been any major postponements. Hotelplan has an enormously strong financial background with the owner Migros, and has never had to take out loans or A-fonds-perdu contributions, for example. We are very well aware of this financially happy starting position, and this could also open up opportunities in the event of a case to take over strategically interesting companies which, after the aid programs, are no longer able to maintain themselves. (CF)
