The big takeaway: Expect brick-and-mortar retailers and travel and hospitality companies to have a rough Q1 2022. While sentiment is expected to rebound as the quarter progresses, it’s hard to know exactly at what point that will occur.

Spending less time waiting for a visit was most important to Gen Xers (ages 41 to 56) and boomers alike, as was travel time to appointments. Younger generations (Gen Zers and millennials) liked the ability to make an appointment quickly via a telehealth service. Cost was also cited by more Gen Zers and millennials than by Gen Xers and boomers.

This may be a pandemic-related increase; Thailand’s approach of social surveillance, tracing, and quarantining of COVID-19 contacts, combined with travel restrictions, contained the virus quite effectively in early 2020.

The first wave of COVID-19 infection hit Israel in February and March 2020, resulting in far-reaching business closures and travel restrictions, but the worst of that initial crisis was receding by May 2020.

As normal life slowly resumes China, consumers are eager to travel again, albeit with reservations. Polls show that some consumers may start trekking as early as this month, but will mainly stay within the country’s borders.

Michael Klein is global director, industry strategy and marketing for retail, travel, and consumer goods at Adobe. Michael is responsible for Adobe’s point of view and messaging in the commerce verticals, working with the company’s global commerce clients to help them develop best-in-class digital marketing strategies.

The issue: The company saw engagement levels drop as the pandemic stifled travel plans. As a result, it wanted to improve the ease of CX and increase touchpoints in a time of low engagement. What Tripadvisor did: Tripadvisor launched two voice assistant campaigns where users could interact with itineraries on Alexa or Google Assistant, one for Abu Dhabi and the other for Visit Orlando.

In terms of the allocations of spend across industries, 2020 will be a story of two trends. On one hand, digital ad investments (and advertising investments overall, for that matter) in some sectors will decline immensely as a result of those industries facing insurmountable barriers. On the other, the pandemic will allow certain other industries to remain resilient in terms of digital spend, with relatively strong growth forecasts for the year. It comes as no surprise that the automotive and travel industries will experience huge spending declines in 2020. As the UK imposed strict lockdown rules, pretty much all travel was nixed for several months. Investment in digital advertising by these two industries will thus suffer, with spend declining by 20.4% for auto and by 36.7% for travel this year.

The way consumers in China are shopping for luxury goods is changing amid the pandemic, with more purchases happening locally because of shelter-in-place protocols and travel restrictions.

Here’s how companies from a variety of industries, including travel, healthcare, and hospitality, are using WhatsApp Business for customer communications. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines: Passengers can receive their travel documents and flight information, including check-in notifications and flight status changes, or ask questions from agents, like whether they can change seat assignments.