Asia-Pacific governments have been loosening their steel grip on international borders since 2H2021, but at your November AAPA Assembly of Presidents meeting, you noted that international passenger volumes across the region remain deeply depressed, at just six per cent of pre-pandemic levels compared to an average of 40 per cent in other regions. What is causing this recovery crawl?
There is modest pick-up in demand in November 2021, coinciding with the easing of restrictions in several Asia-Pacific markets. (Singapore’s) Vaccinated Travel Lanes (VTLs) and travel corridors are (resulting in) a surge in bookings as soon as they are launched, which is indicative of the pent-up (travel) demand.
Such travel lanes and corridors are still too few and far between but should provide the momentum for recovery in 2022 if expanded as planned. Big markets like China and India also need to open up for recovery to commence in earnest.
Is the fear of travel – stemming from a fear of infection and death so widespread throughout this pandemic – among consumers a factor too?
The main factor is travel restrictions, especially quarantine. Quarantine, as well as the plethora of regulations with each government keeping its own counsel, dampen consumer sentiment and travel confidence as potential travellers are confused and (doubtful).
The Omicron variant is making plenty of headlines, and causing border restrictions to be tightened once more and disrupting travel rebound. What should governments learn from this as they attempt to live with Covid?
The knee-jerk reaction is understandable as governments are wary of the new variant of which very little is known. As long as the re-imposition of restrictions is temporary and short-lived to buy time or fine-tune risk-based measures, there should not be too much delay to recovery.
The reality is that governments will have to base their decisions on evidence and science, which require data to be gathered and evaluated.
Hopefully, Omicron is only a fly in the ointment and not a spanner in the works. It is heartening to see several governments in the region sticking to their recovery roadmap and reintroducing only some restrictions to address the immediate risks that have been identified.
In AAPA’s opinion, what ingredients are critical for a more stable travel and tourism recovery, and what can AAPA and its Assembly of Presidents do to move regional governments down the right track?
Living with the virus means we have to take its evolution in our stride. Governments that have adopted a Covid-normal strategy and are adopting risk-based policies and practices are laying the path to recovery.
The association is calling on governments to collaborate across borders, work with the industry in applying risk-based measures and restore international quarantine-free travel progressively.
Sticking or reverting to hard borders and onerous quarantine rules would not only harm travel and tourism but also the economy and livelihoods of the people. Travel corridors and VTLs once started should be sustained so as not to undermine the demand for cross-border travel.
Generally speaking, governments should redouble efforts to spread the access to vaccines as prolonged vaccine inequity will only delay the timeline to recovery.
Besides travel recovery, AAPA has another important commitment for 2022, and that is to cut carbon emissions to net zero by 2050. Will you tell us more about this goal and how aligned Asia-Pacific airlines and authorities are with this mission?
AAPA airlines committed to the net zero emissions goal by 2050 on September 13, 2021. The focus for the industry at the moment is on ICAO CORSIA (Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme in International Aviation), which is a market-based measure already available for international airline operators to reduce their carbon emissions.
The longer term focus is SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuels), for which the airlines will collaborate with other stakeholders, namely governments, fuel suppliers, airports as well as manufacturers of aircraft and engines.
Government support to uphold CORSIA as well as to invest and incentivise SAF production will be crucial as contribution for emissions reduction from SAF use is expected to be up to 75 per cent. Generally speaking, taxes and charges increase cost without benefit to the environment, while support and incentives help the efforts to reduce emissions.
LA-based LEDR, a deep technology company which harnesses the power of collective intelligence to aid decision-making, is planning to set up the company’s headquarters in Singapore and use the city-state as a springboard for its next development phase.
LEDR was founded to commercialise cutting-edge technology that first originated from US national intelligence agencies.
The company creates an up-to-date digital representation of the organisation that gives companies full control of their knowledge assets when collaborating around analytics. This allows companies to generate insights for decision-making without having to centralise or exchange any data.
Last year, LEDR participated in the fourth cohort of the Singapore Tourism Accelerator (STA) programme, partnering with SATS to develop a deep tech system that promotes data sharing and collaboration among businesses in the aviation sector.
The company’s participation in the programme was “to enable the transition from building up our general capabilities to applying those capabilities to solve business needs in different industries, for example, hospitality,” shared Edwin Lau, CEO, LEDR.
“The programme also served as a launchpad for us to meet with multiple hotels and F&B companies.”
Since then, the company has signed a multi-year engagement with a hotel chain to digitally transform its operations, and is currently in similar talks with other global hotel chains and F&B businesses, said Lau.
The company has also held several discussions with other prospective stakeholders to apply its technology in smart buildings, cyber security, supply chain, financial services, and healthcare.
“Our expertise and innovative solution are brought into the spotlight in cases where there are disparate sources of information,” said Lau, adding that the company’s approach “makes insight and intelligence a lot more accessible”.
He explained that with growing demand for personalised services and instant gratification among consumers, companies like aviation businesses can harness technology to enhance guest experience and automate mundane and repetitive tasks, freeing staff to focus on customer relations and value-added activities.
“Companies need technologies that not only help them understand macro trends and patterns, but also, the micro details about each of their customer. All that insight needs to be utilised at every customer touchpoint – whether it is an automated chatbot or when flight attendants serve passengers on board flights,” he said.
In explaining why data sharing and collaboration among aviation and hospitality companies is vital for the future of the industries, Lau said that “the power of analytics is driven by the diversity of information sources you have access to”.
He noted that Gartner predicted that by 2025, 70 per cent of organisations will shift their focus from big to small and wide data, providing more context for analytics and making artificial intelligence (AI) less data hungry.
“No individual company will be able to have all the information they need. A diversity of perspectives matter in our increasingly connected world,” said Lau.
“Deloitte has found that organisations with diverse ecosystems are significantly more likely to have a transformative vision for AI, enterprise-wide AI strategies, and use AI as a strategic differentiator.”
Thus, collaboration and the sharing of information are important if industries such as aviation and hospitality want to maximise the value of their data assets, said Lau, but he pointed out that the process can be “difficult, expensive and risky if a company utilises conventional approaches”.
“A key problem is that conventionally, collaboration means that one party must give up control over their data. As one of the most valuable assets to any company, why would anyone willingly give it up?” he said. “In addition, having to extract and replicate data makes it hard to keep things synchronised, and out-of-date data can often be more misleading than having no data at all.”
This is where LEDR comes into play. Unlike solutions that require businesses to centralise data or information – for example, in data warehouses, data lakes or data exchanges – LEDR’s approach minimises the movement or replication of data, while enabling ecosystems to collaborate on insights and knowledge without the need to exchange data.
LEDR has created new capabilities that conventional approaches are unable to provide customers with, particularly pertaining to intelligent systems, said Lau.
Following its participation in the STA programme, which acted as the company’s platform for a market test, Lau said it has been getting “good reception” from almost every company that it has approached across a variety of industries. With that traction, Lau is building a team and establishing the company’s headquarters in Singapore.
“We believe our technology is transformational, and we plan to use Singapore as a springboard for the next phase of our journey,” he said, adding that the company’s efforts are in alignment with Singapore’s national technology agenda.