“We have tested and tasted too much, lover-
Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder.
But here in the Advent-darkened room
Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea
Of penance will charm back the luxury
Of a child's soul, we'll return to Doom
The knowledge we stole but could not use.”
Patrick Kavanagh, Advent
The last flight I took was from Dublin to Boston, about eighteen months ago. There was new, superfast, broadband on the plane so you could use your laptop or tablet throughout the flight without interruption. Such luxury. Somewhere over Nova Scotia the wifiWi-Fi hit some kind of a glitch and died for almost five minutes. The guy beside me was inconsolable.
“For God’s sake, just get it right. It’s not that bleedin’ difficult.” That was the moment.
That was the moment the world seemed so ridiculous. We were hurtling across the sky at 500mph, strapped to an armchair watching TV shows, and complaining that the signal we were getting from outer space wasn’t fast enough. For less than a week’s wages we were taking five hours to cross the Atlantic, a journey that would have taken our forebears three weeks. And many of them wouldn’t have made it. We were drinking Chablis at 35,000 feet and acting like we were on the Dunbrody. “We had tested and tasted too much.”
So, the pandemic hit. And God or Allah or Vishnu said “Oi, grab a hold of yourself, and stop being complete dicks.” We took the penance meted out and pretended to enjoy our 5K walks each day. But we didn’t. It was the Atkins Diet of travel. The protein was boring and we missed the carb’s of luxury. A year later and we have spiritually (if not physically) pared back and are preparing to go again. Will we savour each delicate morsel of travel, each fragment of culture, or will we head back to the breakfast buffet of bland cuisine?
There is a geeky law called Amara's Law that states "We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run" and I think that the lockdown will be the travel equivalent. We might overestimate the impact of lockdown in the short run but underestimate it in the long run. There is a widely held belief that there is a huge pent-up demand for this ‘revenge travel’, a squadron of Ryanair jets, braced to return us to Santa Ponsa and Maspalomas. And, lest you think I am being snooty, there will be queues for Venice and Florence too. There may well be a hedonistic re-run of the Roaring Twenties this Autumn but that will pass and what is more interesting is what will remain.
National Geographic is a bit woolly in it’s post-Covid predicitions. They speak of ‘sustainability’ and ‘inclusion’ without any real examples. The Lonely Planet is suggesting more Road Trips and a cabal of countries that will allow vaccinated travel only. Forbes, a bit more business-like and statistical, predicts “eight in ten travellers do not intend to resume usual traveling habits once the pandemic is over. What’s more, 41% of people who took part in a global survey expect to travel much less.” But hey, what do all these big companies know – you want to know what I predict. Don’t you? Don’t you? Well here we go.
Airports are finished. Long queues, invasive security and an anxious jog to find Gate 52 in the middle of a shopping centre are just so last century. I will happily pay twice the price to enjoy the journey. Otherwise, I really like trains.
Crowds are finished. So what if the Uffizi has works by da Vinci, Caravaggio and Michelangelo. The price of visiting is too high. You will find me sipping a Corretto in the Mercato Centrale with the cheese makers of Tuscany.
Bucket List travel will be big. People will save for the big adventures and happily trade four packet holidays for a trip to the Galapagos.
The journey is the destination. Road trips, train journeys and boat trips will all be big. An overnight train ride to Lisbon sounds like a plan. A drive to Copenhagen sounds fantastic.
There will be a renewed role for specialised travel consultants to advise, plan and book specialist holidays.
Whatever the changes that may come post-pandemic, there is an opportunity to take a closer look at the costs and benefits of travel and tourism both on a personal and a societal level. I’m not saying it will be entirely possible to “charm back the luxury of a child's soul”, to return to innocence but maybe, just maybe, we can return to Doom, the knowledge we stole but could not use.
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