In March 2020, Rajesh's DMC business had 37 active bookings and a pipeline worth SGD 2.1 million. By April, he had zero bookings and was staring at refund requests for everything. Fast forward to 2025: his business revenue is 140% of pre-pandemic levels, but almost nothing about how he operates is the same.
The pandemic didn't just pause travel—it fundamentally rewired it. Here's what changed and what you need to do differently.
Flexibility Isn't a Feature Anymore—It's the Baseline
Before 2020, standard travel policies meant rigid cancellation terms. Change a hotel? Pay 100% if it's within 7 days. Cancel a tour? Lose your deposit. That world is gone.
Today's travelers—especially corporate and group bookings—demand flexibility as a non-negotiable requirement:
- Free cancellations: Up to 48-72 hours before arrival, minimum
- Date changes: Without penalty, sometimes multiple times
- Partial cancellations: Ability to reduce group size without losing everything
- Travel insurance: Must include pandemic coverage, no exceptions
This affects how you book. Properties offering flexible rates now rank higher, even if they're slightly more expensive. Clients will pay 10-15% premiums for genuine flexibility.
Platforms like DMCQuote now highlight cancellation terms prominently in search results. If a Singapore hotel requires full payment 30 days out with no refunds, it simply won't book unless rates are dramatically cheaper.
What This Means for Your Margins
Flexible rates typically come with lower commissions. You're earning less per booking, but converting more quotes. The math works if you adapt pricing strategies—smaller margins on higher volume beats fat margins on few bookings.
Last-Minute Bookings Became the Norm
Pre-pandemic, international leisure travel was booked 90-120 days in advance. Corporate travel averaged 30-45 days. Today? Those windows shrunk dramatically.
Current booking windows:
- Leisure international: 30-60 days (half of previous)
- Corporate travel: 14-21 days (incredibly short)
- Regional travel: 7-14 days (sometimes same-week)
- Domestic travel: 3-7 days (weekend trips booked midweek)
People are more cautious about committing far in advance. They're watching COVID variants, travel restrictions, and work-from-home policies before confirming trips.
This shift requires operational changes:
- Real-time inventory: You can't work from rate sheets anymore. Availability changes hourly.
- Faster quoting: 48-hour quote turnaround is too slow. Clients expect responses in hours, not days.
- Mobile accessibility: You need to quote and confirm from anywhere, anytime.
- Automated systems: Manual processes can't keep up with shortened timelines.
One agent told me she now does 60% of her bookings from her phone because clients want immediate responses. That's only possible with modern mobile-optimized booking platforms.
Cleanliness and Safety Are Marketing Points
Before the pandemic, nobody asked about hotel hygiene protocols. Now it's the second or third question after price and location.
Properties that prominently display:
- Enhanced cleaning certifications
- Contactless check-in options
- Air filtration systems
- Vaccination policies for staff
- Private dining options
- Outdoor activity space
These hotels book better than comparable properties without visible safety measures, especially for resort destinations and family travel.
Your job as an agent now includes educating clients on safety protocols. That means you need this information readily available for every property and activity you sell.
Remote Work Changed Travel Patterns Completely
The biggest structural change in travel is "bleisure"—business + leisure. With remote work normalized, travelers are extending business trips into mini-vacations or working from vacation destinations.
This creates new package opportunities:
- Extended stays: 7-10 days instead of 3-4, mixing work and leisure
- Workation packages: Hotels with reliable WiFi, desk space, quiet hours
- Flexible itineraries: Tours on some days, work time on others
- Longer-term rentals: Monthly apartment bookings for digital nomads
A corporate traveler going to Bangkok for a 2-day conference might now book 5 nights, working remotely for 3 days and sightseeing. This completely changes how you structure packages and what accommodations make sense.
Properties with coworking spaces, business centers, and strong internet infrastructure command premiums. Beach resorts in Maldives now market "work from paradise" packages with guaranteed connectivity.
Technology Adoption Accelerated by 5 Years
Pre-pandemic, many B2B agents still operated with email, phone calls, and Excel spreadsheets. The shutdown forced digital transformation or death.
Technology that was "nice to have" in 2019 became "must have" in 2020:
- Online booking engines: Clients want to browse themselves before contacting agents
- Virtual payment systems: Nobody wants to handle cash or cheques anymore
- Digital documentation: E-vouchers, mobile tickets, app-based itineraries
- Virtual tours: Property videos and 360° views replaced site inspections
- Automated communication: Email sequences, SMS confirmations, WhatsApp updates
Agents who resisted technology didn't survive the shutdown. Those who adapted thrived. The gap between tech-savvy and tech-resistant agencies is now unbridgeable.
Supplier Relationships Got More Complicated
During lockdowns, thousands of hotels, tour operators, and DMCs went bankrupt. The ones that survived often changed ownership, policies, or contracts.
What this means for agents:
- Supplier reliability matters more: You can't risk booking with unstable partners
- Credit terms tightened: Many suppliers now require prepayment or shorter terms
- Contract flexibility increased: Suppliers offering better cancellation terms win business
- Relationship value skyrocketed: Trusted partners who honored commitments during COVID earn loyalty
B2B platforms that vet suppliers and guarantee bookings became more valuable. When you book through established DMC networks, you're insulated from individual supplier failures.
Group Travel Fundamentally Changed
Large tour groups of 40-50 people? Mostly gone. Today's group travel looks completely different:
- Smaller groups: 10-15 people maximum, often much smaller
- Private experiences: Exclusive tours instead of shared coach tours
- Outdoor activities: Preference for open-air attractions over indoor venues
- Scattered arrivals: Group members arriving on different dates, meeting up later
- Flexible group size: Must accommodate last-minute drops without penalty
SIC (seat-in-coach) tours struggled post-pandemic. Private and small group experiences took over. This changed economics—higher per-person costs but better margins and easier logistics.
Domestic and Regional Travel Exploded
International long-haul travel was the first to die and the last to recover. Meanwhile, domestic and short-haul regional travel boomed.
Smart agents diversified into:
- Weekend getaways (2-3 days instead of week-long trips)
- Drivable destinations (road trips over flights)
- Regional packages (Singapore to Malaysia, Thailand to Cambodia)
- Staycation packages (luxury hotels in home city)
This trend persists even as international travel recovered. People discovered shorter, more frequent trips and prefer that pattern. Your business model needs to accommodate quick-turnaround, lower-value bookings at higher volume.
Sustainability Became a Decision Factor
Pre-pandemic, sustainability was nice marketing language. Post-pandemic, especially with younger travelers and corporate clients, it's a requirement.
Travelers now ask:
- What's the carbon footprint of this itinerary?
- Are hotels eco-certified?
- Do tours support local communities?
- Are there carbon offset options?
- What single-use plastic policies do properties have?
Destinations like Europe and Sri Lanka with strong eco-tourism messaging are winning bookings. Properties without sustainability credentials are losing to greener competitors.
If you're not prepared to answer sustainability questions, you're losing deals—especially from corporate clients with ESG mandates.
Insurance Went from Optional to Mandatory
Travel insurance used to be something agents offered but clients often skipped. Not anymore. Post-pandemic, insurance is expected on virtually every international booking.
And not just any insurance—comprehensive coverage including:
- Pandemic-related cancellations
- Medical evacuation
- Trip interruption due to quarantine
- Supplier bankruptcy protection
- Emergency accommodation extensions
This adds complexity to quoting (insurance costs vary significantly) but also adds a revenue stream. Commission on insurance can be 20-30% depending on the policy.
Client Communication Expectations Changed
Remember when it was okay to respond to inquiries the next business day? Those days are dead. Pandemic-era anxiety created expectations for instant communication that never went away.
Clients now expect:
- Immediate acknowledgment: Auto-responses within minutes
- Quick quotes: Full proposals within hours, not days
- Proactive updates: Don't wait for clients to ask about changes
- Multi-channel access: Email, WhatsApp, SMS, phone—whatever they prefer
- 24/7 emergency support: Especially during trips
This is only manageable with automation and mobile technology. Manual, office-based operations can't deliver this level of responsiveness.
Pricing Transparency Became Non-Negotiable
Pandemic-era uncertainty made people highly sensitive to hidden fees and unclear pricing. Today's clients demand complete transparency:
- All-inclusive pricing shown upfront
- Clear cancellation policies before booking
- Visible markup explanations (what you're charging for your service)
- No surprise fees at checkout
Agents who nickel-and-dime clients or hide fees in fine print are getting destroyed on reviews and social media. Build trust with transparent pricing, even if it means slightly lower margins.
What Hasn't Changed (The Fundamentals)
Despite all the disruption, some things remain constant:
- Relationships matter: Clients still want trusted advisors, not just booking engines
- Expertise wins: Knowing destinations deeply creates value AI can't replace
- Service quality: How you handle problems defines your reputation
- Personalization: Generic packages lose to customized experiences
The pandemic accelerated trends but didn't change fundamental human desires for travel, adventure, and connection.
How to Adapt Your Business
If you're still operating like it's 2019, here's your action plan:
- Adopt modern booking technology: Real-time inventory, mobile access, automated quoting
- Revise your cancellation policies: Build in flexibility or you won't compete
- Speed up response times: Measure quote turnaround in hours, not days
- Diversify product mix: Add shorter trips, regional destinations, bleisure packages
- Build sustainability knowledge: Know eco-options for every destination you sell
- Strengthen supplier partnerships: Work with reliable, flexible partners
- Invest in communication tools: CRM, automation, multi-channel messaging
The agencies thriving post-pandemic aren't necessarily the biggest. They're the most adaptable.
The Silver Lining
For all the pain the pandemic caused, it created opportunities for forward-thinking agents:
- Inefficient competitors disappeared, reducing competition
- Technology became affordable and accessible
- Clients value expert guidance more than ever
- Margins improved on private and customized experiences
- Remote work enabled global operations from anywhere
The travel industry that emerged is leaner, smarter, and more profitable for agents who adapted. Those still trying to resurrect 2019 are struggling while innovators are thriving.
The old world isn't coming back. But the new world offers better opportunities if you're willing to embrace change. Platforms like DMCQuote exist precisely because the pandemic proved the old way of working couldn't survive disruption.
Your move: adapt or get left behind. The choice has never been clearer.
