The first report from the UK Covid-19 Inquiry was released on 18th July 2024 and the brief summary report is well worth a read.
The standout quote is, "it's not "If" another pandemic strikes, but when", and it's important to reflect on how prepared we would all be as travel businesses for a future pandemic.
Perhaps it is painful to look back on what happened during Covid-19, or to imagine how we would react when the next pandemic strikes, but as responsible businesses, to not do so would be short-sighted. In particular, the report notes that preparation costs money, and (somewhat counter-intuitively) involves setting up to handle an event that may never happen. But, as we know, it did, and it's always much more expensive to recover from a major event where little to no planning was in place than the cost of the time, resources and advice to create a robust plan.
What did you learn in the handling of the pandemic? Did you have a wash-up? Did you implement the follow-ups or were you swept away in the intensity of resuming normal operations?
Another area identified in the report was the failure to learn from past emergencies and a lack of diverse opinions, with advice undermined by group thinking. Reflect for a moment - when considering risk and responses, or when handling a crisis, do you as a business have diverse perspectives, or someone neutral looking from the outside in to help identify blind spots?
It is human nature to move on from traumatic events (or not dwell on them in the first place), but now is the time to do just that, whether for a pandemic or any other significant event.
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