For the first time in any of our lives, the whole world is at a standstill. We are barely moving, very few of us are traveling, and overall, everything seems to be on standby. At TrustYou, we have been watching the slowdown happen through the lens of guest reviews measured in our Travel Health Index. For the week ending April 5, our guest review tracking clearly shows the world on lockdown, with all figures grinding down to a dramatic halt.
To contextualize the effect of the pandemic on the hospitality industry, we have leveraged the world’s largest guest review database to create the Travel Health Index. This exclusive TrustYou resource compares the current review data with that of 2019 and is updated on a weekly basis, showing a trend of steady decline. By the end of March 2020, all countries listed in our database with the exception of one shows complete review inactivity, essentially, lockdown.
While we have registered a score of 29 compared to 2019 for the last week of March in Taiwan, making it the country with the highest score, our Travel Health Index still classifies the situation as Severe compared to the same time last year. Other Asian countries, such as Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Maldives, and China also still show a double-digit score on the indexes. Though essentially in lockdown, these countries show some minor activity in the hospitality industry, indicating that hotels are not completely closed in the region. Almost all other regions are lingering close to 0 as compared to the normal levels of last year this time.
We are watching and waiting while working from home, breathing deeply, and hoping for the first signs of movement to show in one of our upcoming Travel Health Index updates, soon. Until then, we are using the downtime to plan for the future and make sure we are ready for that day when the industry comes back stronger than ever – because when the voices of our guests start speaking again, it will be imperative to listen harder.
Make sure to keep an eye on our Travel Health Index in the following weeks, to monitor and assess the travel landscape from a global and a regional perspective.