It took a global pandemic and stay-at-home orders for 1.5 billion people worldwide, but something is finally occurring to us: The future we thought we expected may not be the one we get.
We know that things will change; how they’ll change is a mystery. To envision a future altered by coronavirus, Quartz asked dozens of experts for their best predictions on how the world will be different in five years.
Below is an answer from Yolanda Edwards, the founder of travel magazine Yolo Journal. She previously spent five years as the creative director at Conde Nast Traveler.
The way in which we travel, and think about traveling, has changed, and I’m sure this will be long-term. As the world has paused over the last several months, we’ve all adapted to new ways of working—we’ve seen that you can work from anywhere, and the office face time is an outdated notion. Clearly this will affect business travel—perhaps not eliminating it, but definitely reducing it greatly. Leisure travel will most likely become less frequent, but more considered; the long weekend getaways to far flung locales, on flights that are cheaper than a bus fare from New York to Washington, DC—those will go away. I imagine, and hope, that travelers will take longer, but less frequent trips, and, in anticipation of the trip, will do much more research, and a deep dive into the destination, becoming more thoughtful citizens of the world.
To read more New Normal answers, click here.