Expedia Group Launches COVID-19 Advisor Tool to Track Global Travel Restrictions and to Help Restore Confidence In Travel
Expedia Group introduced the COVID-19 Travel Advisor, a tech-enabled tool that provides travelers with current details about travel restrictions worldwide. Powered by sherpa, the COVID-19 Travel Advisor is now part of several Expedia Group consumer brands to simplify the experience for people seeking guidance in destinations they hope or plan to visit, such as quarantine and COVID-19 testing requirements. Expedia Group saw initial success in its pilot phase, with more than 1.6 million travelers using the COVID-19 Advisor across brands since the winter of 2020, and around 13 million pieces of communication sent to customers via email, push notifications and SMS, with the sherpa link included.
Communicating destination-specific information about restrictions and travel information is critical to rebuilding traveler confidence in the wake of COVID-19. Since July 2020, there have been almost 10 million clicks on travel advisories from across Expedia Group's core brands and in the month of March 2021 alone, more than 1.7 million clicks, a 97% increase from the month prior, suggesting an increased desire to travel as the industry recovers. Travelers are also turning to OTAs for trip planning nearly 25% more than pre-pandemic, according to a recent Expedia Group study1. The COVID-19 Travel Advisor is well-positioned to communicate information about restrictions and safety measures at scale, and will act as an important step forward in boosting traveler confidence in the coming months.
“Travelers are inundated with conflicting information about where and how they can safely travel as the COVID-19 vaccine rollout continues. This makes it challenging for our travel partners to know how and when to best position themselves online to capture fluctuating demand,” said Cyril Ranque, President, Travel Partners Group at Expedia Group. “We teamed up with sherpa to seamlessly integrate a solution into our apps, websites, and customer communications. Our goal is to reduce friction for travelers, and also further support our travel partners across lodging, air, car and cruise by removing the time-heavy task of managing individual traveler queries about restrictions and travel requirements for each destination. It’s another step in the right direction of connecting the right supply with the right demand, at the right time.”
The COVID-19 Advisor supports the entire traveler journey, whether customers are trying to decide where to travel or have already booked a trip. To align with traveler needs and preferences, each Expedia Group consumer brand incorporated the COVID-19 Travel Advisor at the following readily accessible locations:
- Expedia COVID-19 Travel Advisor
- Hotels.com COVID-19 Travel Advisor
- Vrbo COVID-19 Travel Advisor
- ebookers COVID-19 Travel Advisor
- Orbitz COVID-19 Travel Advisor
- Travelocity COVID-19 Travel Advisor
- Wotif COVID-19 Travel Advisor
“Travel is critical to our world economy and an important part of human connection,” said Max Tremaine, Co-Founder and CEO, sherpa. “Since the pandemic started, our focus has remained firmly on helping our travel partners restore consumer confidence and trust in travel. This partnership with Expedia Group exemplifies our shared goals and speaks to Expedia Group’s commitment to power global travel for everyone, everywhere.”