New air travel products serving leisure and business travellers

The last few years changed the air travel industry perspectives: according to the report “Transformation 2021” by CarTrawler, leisure and business travellers are now reshaping their choice criteria, leading airlines to adapt their business model. 

Destination above all
Destination and emotional involvement are becoming crucial in the decision-making process: after long months of pandemic restrictions, travellers feel the need to “be there”. This strengthens the need to protect customers from uncertainty, mainly coming from unstable change fees of air tickets and sudden border closures. As destination is now representing the central feature of the travel product, airlines and travel industry need to work jointly to limit border restrictions.  

A turn towards leisure
In this scenario, the leisure segment is growing: major airlines are providing long-haul routes to typical holiday destinations. Finnair, for example, is opening new routes from Stockholm to Phuket (Thailand) and Miami (USA); Brussels Airlines will operate in Arecife (Lanzarote, Spain), Hurghada (Egypt) and Rabat (Morocco). A stated by Jan Derycke, Vice President Ground Operations and Airport Services at Brussels Airlines,  booking data show that people are willing to travel again and to book earlier. In this perspective, websites providing travel suggestions and experiences will be more effective than transaction-based websites.  

Business class accessible to everyone
As the business segment is still recovering, economic difficulties are preventing companies to spend on expensive business fares. As a result of this, airlines such as Finnair and Emirates started to promote a “basic business” fare accessible both to leisure and business travellers, wo which you can add ancillary services, such as checked baggage. This “mix” of leisure and business travellers is also reported by Business Travel News, underlining a rise in the bleisure segment, in particular through the so-called workations. 

Beating uncertainty through new price policies and services 
As reported by PhocusWire, airline ancillary revenue is growing. According to the report, airlines are starting to promote “branded” fares (good, better and best) that will guide the consumer towards the middle fare. This will allow airlines to combine a good price with ancillary services, and enhance the revenue as 55% of bookers tend to prefer the “middle” choice and only 5% the cheapest one. In this perspective, an attractive way to conquer travellers’ trust is to include in every fare a travel insurance. Finally, a comeback of buy-on-board food services is also foreseeable, with a focus on local products and sustainability, as it can be perceived as a “return to normal” to travellers. 

At Twissen we observed that the current pandemic scenario has changed travellers’ priorities, both in terms of demand for services and in their own decision-making process. Creating fares that efficiently combine price, destination and service, and that cater to both the leisure and business segments is a winning strategy for airlines to meet today’s traveller’s needs and be competitive.  

Martina Baldo

She graduated in Intercultural Development of Tourism Systems and she has a passion for foreign languages and cultures. Since 2016 she works as administration and tourism project manager at Twissen.