Virtual Travel as an Alternative to Air Travel?

 We seem lonely but afraid of intimacy. Siri, the social network, digital assistants, all of these give the illusion of companionship without the demands of relationship. The path we are on seems fraught with paradox and about the most important human matters”.

 

by Dr. Ruwantissa Abeyratne-July 11, 2020

Writing from Montreal

 

“Human interaction is the key force in overcoming resistance and speeding change.”

Atul Gawande, Surgeon

 

During this pandemic period we are going through, the question on everyone’s lips is “what is the new normal going to be”? In the context of air transport this question has given rise to diverse views, ranging from: “over time, people will forget the crisis ever occurred and its horrendous claim on hundreds of thousands of life and eventually get back to what the world was in 2019”; to “air travel will be different from what it was”. No one has adduced any cogent proof of either premise. Hovering over these two scenarios is the shroud of reality that there is an innate desire, almost an obsession, in the average human mind to travel to distant places; breathe different air; swim in different lakes and see different exhibits in museums in their natural state.

 

 

There are certain incontrovertible factors to be considered which admittedly are platitudes but nonetheless true. The first is that the human being is a collective animal. This is brought to bear not merely by the recent outcries and vociferous protests demanding the right to gather together in public by people in places like Serbia and Brazil, and even in the United States but also by the fact that people thronged bars, restaurants, beaches and other public places the moment the lockdown was lifted in various countries. This is an implicit recognition that technology cannot replace human physical interaction. Sherry Turkle, Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology once said: “We expect more from technology and less from each other. We create technology to provide the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship”.

 

The second truth is that people travel for different reasons: to conduct business; to see places and experience what the world has to offer; to receive education in a foreign country; to experience live music at music festivals; go to the theater; and to visit their friends and relatives. There could be other reasons as well.

 

We are now globally destitute of all these privileges and, in keeping with our innate and relentless obsession with ingenuity and creativity, we have come up with “virtual travel”. In this context, the first thing that comes to mind is: “what is the purpose of travel”? I expand this further to my own persuasion which is the study of air transport: “what is the purpose of international air transport”. The answer, in simplistic terms is “to bring the world together by connecting the world and its people”. If one were to be more specific and technical, one could quote the international treaty that addresses international aviation - the Chicago Convention on 1944 - of which the full title is “Convention on International Civil Aviation” which says inter alia in its Preamble that the future development of international civil aviation can greatly help to create and preserve friendship and understanding among the nations and people of the world.

 

Our present discussion hinges on the words “friendship and understanding among the nations and people of the world”. The question then becomes: would virtual travel succeed in furthering friendship and understanding among us globally”? For instance, how could virtual travel allow us to befriend another at the poolside in a foreign hotel? Would we be able to chat with another tourist from a foreign country while travelling in a train from Budapest to Prague? Would we be able to talk to the owners of a Mom and Pop deli in Chianti about their homemade spaghetti? And speaking of conducting business, what about chit chat at a cocktail reception that could lead to a good deal? Or what about compromises reached at the coffee break at a United Nations?

 

Those who are proponents of virtual travel claim that there are already 150 million users of Google Maps and many millions using Google Earth as well which reflect that virtual reality is already popular among people. There are highly attractive virtual tours from places such as the Feroe Islands and the Bahamas which are calculated to be popular among potential travellers and virtual tourists. They also claim that under the circumstances of constrained air travel people will make informed decisions on the minimum loss of experience of being physically “there” as against the significant advantages of avoiding queues at museums and being able to gape at paintings and artifacts as long as they want to without being rushed to keep moving on in a queue past the Mona Lisa at the Musee du Louvre.

 

It is also predicted by some that the travel industry will eventually realize that travel is not really only about physical travel only but also about “selling experiences” without physical travel. It is claimed that with the rapidly advancing technology this could be made possible with augmented reality. It will be an experience without being there.

 

My take is that virtual travel, with all that technology has to offer as mentioned above, could be a useful tool for airlines to firstly entice travellers to their route network with pre travel experiences of digitally prepared promotions. This way airlines could amplify their networks and encourage and enhance advance bookings. Secondly, airlines can have their own data and use it to their competitive advantage. They could give virtual reality tours to attract potential tourists by showing favourite destinations and places of interest, favourite cafes and restaurants etc.

 

One expert commented at a recent webinar conducted on the subject that every crisis has an opportunity and virtual travel could well be that opportunity. In other words, this could be a win-win situation where even the customer would benefit as virtual travel would augment customer experience at low cost.

 

Of course, it is difficult to envision an era where virtual travel will completely replace air travel.. This would be like imagining having food when one is hungry without having real food. It would not allay a person’s hunger. The bottom line is the human experience. Will the businessman lose an opportunity that would have presented itself at a tête-à-tête in a bar or pub after working hours? Would students not be able to benefit anymore of the feeling of studying in a foreign environment? Would staring at a screen in a lonely basement room watching virtual people drinking coffee at a busy café be the same as being there?

 

As Sherry Turkle said at a recent Ted Talk: “We are at a moment of temptation, ready to turn to machines for companionship even as we seem pained or inconvenienced to engage with each other in settings as simple as a grocery store. We want to instrumentalize daily life with real people and accept fantasies of "intimate" conversations with robotic personal assistants who have no real understanding of what we are saying to them in terms of what things mean to us.

 

We seem lonely but afraid of intimacy. Siri, the social network, digital assistants, all of these give the illusion of companionship without the demands of relationship. The path we are on seems fraught with paradox and about the most important human matters”.

 

After all, air transport became the force it is today because it was meant to promote friendship and understanding among people. Would virtual travel change this?