At press time in mid-December, many parts of the country are still under lockdowns that restrict nonessential travel. With the death toll showing no sign of slowing, it’s hard to imagine jetting off to anywhere. But the first doses of a COVID-19 vaccine are due to be injected into frontline health care workers within days of this writing, an initial step in what will surely be a long road back to some kind of normalcy, and I got to wondering about how long it might be before we can begin hitting the road again. 

My first thought was that we will likely have to carry some proof of vaccination to board a plane (or attend a sporting event, a movie or a conference), probably in an app on our phones. Indeed, airlines United, JetBlue and Lufthansa have announced plans to introduce CommonPass, a health passport app, and security company CLEAR already links LabCorp COVID test results to its Health Pass app.

The role of technology in reviving the travel industry is just one of the topics covered in Accelerating Travel Innovation After Coronavirus, a report by Caroline Bremner, Euromonitor International’s head of travel research. (It’s available as a free download from the white papers section of Euromonitor’s web site. Registration is required.)

Much of the report focuses on the sustainable travel movement – which at the moment seems like an extravagance, seeing as how it’s hard to travel, period, let alone travel sustainably, but as Bremner notes, the down-to-the-studs reimagining that the virus has wrought is an opportunity to rebuild and reshape travel as we know it. “Responding to the global SOS, travel brands and destinations went back to first principles and got creative,” she writes. “Many came back fighting, showing great resilience, agility and strength in times of adversity. Innovation was a key vehicle for adapting to the new norms, accelerating digitalization and sustainability to future-proof recovery. The pandemic has sharply revealed the fault lines in the industry’s business model, redrawing the global map as new priority corridors and alliances emerge post-lockdown. Unchained from the past, there is a chance to reset and correct the course of history, to chart a better path based on the universal values that unite us, rather than divide us. Putting aside differences and acting with purpose, the path to carbon neutrality, equality and social justice can be achieved by following the [United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals]. With technology as the enabler, it is time to harness nature, culture, adventure and shared experiences to build a travel industry fit for purpose.”

It’s a fast read and worth your time even if you’re not in the travel industry for the wealth of examples of how some nimble companies have responded to the seismic shifts, from Aeroguest, a Danish app that “provides consumers a fully digital and touch-free hotel experience from the booking stage to check-out,” with the goal of reducing the use of paper and plastic and also minimizing human contact, to the floating solar panels used in the Maldives by Lux Resorts in South Ari Atoll to protect coral reefs and reduce consumption of diesel fuel. 

In a time when so many marketing experts are imploring brands to understand and respond to consumers’ emotional needs, many of the innovations cited in the report relate to assuaging fears – fear of infection, of course, but also fear of the increasing impacts of climate change. Beyond mere reassurance, though, they also give consumers a sense of agency, which could be an enormously worthwhile thing to tap into as we come out of months of feeling powerless to keep COVID at bay in the face of the selfishness of our pandemic-denying fellow citizens and the often negligent responses from elected officials. If an app or a brand will help me travel more safely or vacation in a way that lets me feel I am doing my small part to enhance and preserve the places I visit along with reducing my carbon footprint, sign me up.