Here’s What the Future of Travel Looks Like in 2021, According to Industry Experts

Carl Marbach is a veteran pilot who is changing the way we look at private air travel. His new company, SharedCharter, helps connect brokers, operators, and travelers to ensure a more cost-effective flight and creates more opportunities for those seeking private jets to take to the skies. While he didn’t anticipate a world-altering health crisis to occur in 2020, Marbach expects that interest in private travel options will continue to trend, and that SharedCharter will help make it possible for more people.

“You can look at other peer-to-peer sites like Airbnb and Uber, and see their success, and I knew it was the right time for this,” Marbach says. “I’ve been in aviation a long time and have traveled on plenty of jets. I’ve noticed all the empty seats and know there is plenty of capacity not being used on these flights. If we could reduce the price of the charter, we could both increase the market share dramatically and make it worth doing for the cost. When you think about it, you get exactly the same convenience with three couples that you would with one.”

While the whole point of private travel, especially amid a pandemic, may be to avoid boarding an aircraft with strangers, Marbach says there’s more to SharedCharter that makes it better than the other options on the market, which only offer crowdsourcing, meaning travelers wouldn’t know who they are traveling with until their departure.

“The virus has made people think they may not want to sit on a plane with 200 people, much less sit in an airport with thousands, and we get that there may be people who don’t even want to share a charter,” he says. “We’ve thought through that and know you can’t just stick people together willy-nilly. You need to have some communication to chat and make sure they are compatible. You also need to see if they’ve been careful and what their personal health choices have been during this virus.”

When two parties get paired who want to take the same flight, SharedCharter facilitates the communication between them without giving away personal information so those details stay private unless they decide to travel together. And while reducing a flight from $18,000 per couple to $3,000 may still feel like a high price, Marbach says it’s important to consider all the amenities offered with private air travel that you wouldn’t even find in first-class, which may not cost that much less, depending on your circumstances.

“The benefits of charters start with the departure,” Marbach says. “Most people don’t know this, but while there are about 400 airports in the U.S. that commercial airlines go through, there are actually more than 12,000 airports in total. You are way closer to an airport than you think you are, and it’s a totally different experience, especially if you’re traveling to and from a more rural location.”

Marbach says you can forget frustrating parking facilities and the headache of going through TSA lines with charters, as you simply drive up, walk through a lounge to meet your crew, who take your luggage for you, and board the plane, all in about 15 minutes. Besides saving time, the comfort and luxuries of flying private are the most common draws. You can order any food or beverages ahead of time, you’ll likely always have reliable Wi-Fi, and your quarters will be just as comfortable or more so than flying first-class. Plus, you can have a car waiting for you on the tarmac to immediately take you to your final destination instead of toe-tapping through baggage claim and braving the arrivals pick-up area. What’s not to love?

Our staff reported earlier this year that many travel companies are noticing a major uptick in the demand for private aviation options, and companies like SharedCharter may help make this seemingly aspirational form of transportation into an exciting reality for jet-setters in 2021. Plus, it offers ways to visit locales in 2021 that may not be as frequently offered by commercial airlines in the first half of the year.

“It’s critical that we welcome the whole person and consider the whole person when creating an environment, to ensure we meet the needs of our guests,” says Simon Marxer, Hyatt Wellbeing Council Co-Chair & Miraval Director of Spa and Wellbeing. “I think that rapid acceleration of our awareness of this concept, as well as the increased expectations of our guests to have some sort of mention of wellbeing as a component of their stay, is a notable shift this year and speaks to what we will only see more of in the future.”

Marxer and his team recently opened a new Miraval resort spa destination in the Berkshires, and while it feels like a strange time to launch, he is genuinely excited to be able to teach more people how to better care for themselves by caring for them. He says that Hyatt’s purpose is to care for people so they can be their best, and guests need that more than ever, as they are arriving to their destinations with some extra built-in distress. Hyatt in particular is seeking to meet more people where they are with a hybrid of in-person and virtual experiences to help them find rejuvenation and restoration within their comfort zone. While he is seeing a significant interest in spas this year, his team is also working to ensure guests have a private experience, receive the utmost care, and their expectation of cleanliness is exceeded.

“If one does not participate in their own wellbeing journey, then there will be implications in how people feel and perform—with that new awareness, we are trying to meet people where they are and help them shift their mindsets.” Marxer says. “We experience life through our bodies, how they feel and move through our day, and it has an enormous impact on mental health. By caring for the physical body we are caring for our mental health and that is the genesis why so many people are seeking that spa experience right now.”

Marxer’s well-being team is enjoying the challenge of thinking outside the box when it comes to providing safe and desirable amenities and experiences in the midst of a pandemic and expects wellness to continue to trend as a top priority for travelers in 2021. They are creating a variety of outdoor experiences to help people better enjoy the benefits of nature and, in fact, see it as one of their most important responsibilities.

“In terms of seeing well-being as a priority, it will soon become a necessity and a moral imperative that we support our guests’ well-being, even if it is a shorter stay or something they may not initially identify as an intention for their visit,” Marxer says. “I think it’s becoming more and more important for that need for well-being to be a component of the Hyatt experience, and we will only continue to accelerate that.”