4 ways the Pandemic has forever changed our Travel Behavior
Back in early 2020, when “coronavirus” first started to make its appearance in the news, it was hard to imagine just how much it would impact the world and every detail of our lives. Now, more than a year later things like wearing a mask, social distancing, and working from home feel so normal that it is hard to imagine things going back to exactly how they were prior to the pandemic. I would argue that they won’t. COVID-19 changed so much more than our physical activities, it changed our perspective on what’s truly essential in every element of our lives and culture. Today, I want to talk about how the pandemic affected even our travel behavior and how it will be forever changed long after the coronavirus becomes a distant memory.
People don’t travel just to travel, there is always a reason whether that’s work, errands, or leisure. As a result of the virus, a lot of things moved online and we could see that a lot of things could be accomplished just as effectively. This is one way that the pandemic changed our point of view on certain things. Therefore, the long lasting impact that COVID-19 will have on travel behavior will be that trips are made more out of necessity than leisure. This post will explore what that will look like in specific areas.
First up, shopping!
Whether that is getting our weekly groceries or doing our Christmas shopping, it can all be done online, and that is not going away. Online shopping was already a thing before the pandemic, especially in the retail department, but since the quarantine mandates, even our grocery shopping can be done online. For some families, grocery shopping can be such a hassle, now you can have your groceries prepaid and you can pick them up with curbside pickup in one quick stop, or better yet, they can deliver your groceries right to your doorstep!. In a survey done, which can be viewed here, it shows that consumers have increased their online shopping, which is to be expected, but it also shows that online grocery has gone up from 4% to 15% during the pandemic and predicts that because of ease and convenience, online grocery shopping will continue on after the pandemic, especially now that curbside pickup and delivery services are in place. This same research shows that when people do make shopping trips in person, they are quicker and less frequent. Even if someone can’t afford to pay the extra fees for online grocery shopping, they go to the store as little as possible and spend as little as possible time there. Thus, making a trip to go shopping in person comes from necessity.
Commuting home
The biggest generator of daily trips and commutes is work. That much is clear to anyone who has tried driving anywhere on a weekday around 5pm. Now transit even during peak hours has dropped dramatically. Similar to shopping, working from home wasn’t unheard of before the pandemic, but now it is very common and some people even narrow their job search based on if they are able to work remotely from work or not. If one does have to go to work in person, they are taking their own car, or some other non-shared mode of transport like a bike or scooter. Unfortunately people feel less inclined to take public transportation, usually for their own safety. This point is made in this article here. This article also talks about how remote working will still be common even after the pandemic. Many companies paid a lot of money to have huge office buildings, now they realize that their employees can work from home at their convenience and to the convenience of the company. Large companies have saved money and downsized their office space and plan on having many of their employees continue to work remotely. This graph shows that overall the amount of people working completely in person has gone down and the amount of people working online, even part of the time has gone up.
Traveling to work was once a necessity for everyone, but now we see that it is not truly necessary for everyone and those who will travel to work after the pandemic will do so out of a real necessity.
Virtual Reality trips?
The other reason people travel and make big trips, is for vacation and tourism. During the height of the pandemic, vacation and tourism dropped to nearly zero. Will this be sustained even after the pandemic? Most likely not, however the decline in tourism did open people’s minds to different possibilities and options that will continue in the future. According to this article, because of the virus, people started looking to virtual reality as a less risky way of experiencing places. For people in the future to choose VR over actually traveling to a destination, the experience needs to be satisfying and seemingly authentic. There may still be some advances to be made before we see full scale VR tourism, but it is still an option that would eliminate the need to travel. With the rise in popularity of VR, it could help slow the spread of future viruses that are sure to come. If VR were to become more prominent, it would mean that not even for leisure people need to travel.
Social Divides
The last aspect of travel behavior affected by COVID-19 that will be explored, are the socioeconomic differences and changes. As previously mentioned, most people that have to work in person are choosing to drive their own personal car, however there are people who cannot afford a car and out of necessity travel by public transit. People of lower income may also be limited to internet access which would prevent them from doing online shopping or working remotely according to this article here. Fortunately, the public transit in many cities have responded to the pandemic by increasing health and safety measures so that people of lower income are not at risk, but this doesn’t necessarily bring back people of higher income to public transit. In total, this creates a divide among classes where the rich drive their cars and the poor have to travel by public transit, which will likely continue. Because people of lower income are more likely to be people of color, this could also create a racial divide.
In summary, the pandemic has influenced every aspect of travel behavior with long term effects. When trips are made, they are made out of necessity and are more planned and organized than previous to the pandemic. After more than a year of living with the coronavirus, it has opened our eyes to new possibilities and instilled new habits that will continue through generations. Many people even theorize that because of how globalized the world has become, this will not be our last pandemic. This would perpetuate even more our current travel behavior of necessity over leisure.
