Sounding Off: In a post-coronavirus world, it's trains before planes

Each Friday, PhocusWire dissects and debates an industry trend or new development covered on our site that week.

It's perhaps too early and too ambitious to make detailed predictions as to how the travel industry will emerge from the outbreak of the coronavirus.

One thing is for absolute certain: It won't be easy for travelers or the brands that help them get from one place to another or accommodate them in a destination.

The magnitude of how airports and airlines, for example, will have to be reconfigured to take into account different types of security controls or the remnants of social distancing is difficult to comprehend.

As Avi Meir suggests, state restrictions on international movement will see domestic trips reignite before any form of large-scale overseas travel follows suit, especially by air.

In Europe and many parts of Asia (plus perhaps the Northeast urban and suburban transit corridors of the U.S.), rail is likely to come to the fore as an important mode of transport.

This could become an important trend to keep an eye on, especially in the context of the green travel movement that has yet to capitalize (it would be fairly distasteful, given the human impact of the COVID-19 crisis) on the reality that there are very few aircraft in the skies above us right now.

Air travel will come back, for sure. But travelers shifting to rail might be a lasting outcome from the current climate (no pun intended). Or, there might at least be a move to a landscape where combinations of transport types gains popularity.

Multimodal transport planning platforms have been around for a decade but have yet to fully capture the attention of travelers or those organizing travel for others. Perhaps their time has come.