Deep Dive into Consumer Perception of Post-Covid Travel For a National Airline

The Ask:

As the world reopened after Covid, a national airline aimed to recover from the travel slump, encourage more travel to its country Thailand and increase passenger numbers and market share. To do this, they needed to understand consumer perceptions around post-Covid travel so as to identify ways to nudge travelers to visit their country and choose their airline.

The Approach:

To provide the client, with a holistic understanding of consumer behaviour and the strategic direction to take to encourage travel, I strcutrued my analysis as per the following:

1. Category Analysis: Macro trends in post-Covid travel

2. Consumer Analysis: Consumer perception of traveling to Thailand post-Covid

3. Competitor Analysis: Sentiment towards client airline versus its competitors

   
   

Given the massive 150M+  volume of discussions around post covid travel , I adopted a hypothesis-based approach to social listening to guide my analysis. 15 hypotheses per question, covering topics like safety protocols, flight schedules, booking flexibility, cost, and in-flight services were created. The hypotheses were targeted and looked something like:

• "Proper vaccination protocols of a country influence consumer perception towards traveling there positively"

• "Stringent safety protocols of the airline cause hassle and discourage travelers from choosing the airline"

  
  

I used these hypotheses to structure topic queries and filters, allowing for a focused examination of social media and online discussions to validate or reject the hypotheses and understand consumer perception and sentiment.

The Insight:

Surprisingly, “Uncertainty” stood out as the prime most driver of travel decisions in the post-Covid period, trumping factors like  safety protocols even. With uncertainty surrounding covid, the last thing travelers wanted was uncertainty in travelling.

Figure 1: Examples of Negatve Comments Regarding Uncertainty

Airlines and destinations that took proactive steps to reduce uncertainty—by providing clear information, ensuring safety, and offering a hassle-free experience—were viewed more favorably by consumers.  As such my recommendation to the client was to focus on unambiguous timely communication and uncertainty management to encourage more travel.

The Value Add:

Through an exhaustive social listening exercise, our client achieved the following outcomes:

1. Holistic Audience Understanding: A deep dive into consumer perceptions through the three key questions, helped the client gain a comprehensive understanding of their consumer.

2. Clear Strategic Focus: Social Listening revealed clear insights with clear actionable, lending strategic focus to the client

3. Optimized Efforts: Hypotheses based approach revealed insights that defied initial assumptions (e.g., safety protocols were prime influential), enabling the airline to redirect resources to more effective strategies for boosting travel.

In summary, the hypothesis based approach to social listening provided the client with a thorough understanding of their consumers, driving desirable outcomes and their bottom-line in the context of a recovering travel industry.

Done at TBWA\Singapore