Expedia's Cyril Ranque on what’s needed to restart and how Covid-19 forced a big clean-up and speaking to WiT from his home in Geneva – his mantelpiece is filled with travel souvenirs including aeroplane models – Ranque, like most of us, is clearly itching to travel again and not just locally.

As a boy, Cyril Ranque flew a lot. His mother was a flight attendant on Air France. One day, on a flight from Mauritius to Paris, he was sitting next to the window and saw one of the aircraft engines on fire.

“At that time, I didn’t know the fuel was in the wings,” recalled the president of Travel Partners Group at Expedia Group. “Luckily, the captain managed to land in Reunion and we changed planes.”

That incident didn’t put him off flying or travel “because I had full trust in Air France, and the pilots and the planes”, he said, “just as I trust that the airlines will do the right thing to address Covid-19 and just as I trust that travel will be back.”

Cyril Ranque at home in Geneva with his toy planes: “No standards are being defined to say, ‘this is how we travel’. The moment we do that, people will start to feel confident again.”

“Everyone is saying it will be domestic travel but I think people want to go out and beyond and I’d rather see governments develop health and safety protocols to allow people to travel across countries rather than keep borders close. Having tourism arrival quarantine is the wrong approach.”

Ranque said a collaborative approach to set up and agree on common protocols – such as those introduced after September 11 – was necessary to instill consumer confidence. While he said the World Travel & Tourism Council was trying to do this to align different parties, “the issue is every company is trying to do their own thing, in their own race to set up protocols, but what we are missing is the in-between bits – what happens when I leave my home and get out on the other side to a hotel.

“No standards are being defined to say, ‘this is how we travel’. The moment we do that, people will start to feel confident again.”

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