Publications

- April 1, 2021: Vol. 15, Number 4

To read this full article you need to be subscribed to Institutional Real Estate Europe

Brace yourselves: The future could be characterised by continued periodic disruptions in our ability to travel

by Geoffrey Dohrmann

I t has been a year now since we produced a live face-to-face event, our VIP Europe programme, conducted at the Hotel Arts in Barcelona. One of our keynote speakers for that event was Chris Kutarna, an Oxford Adult Education professor and co-author of the bestselling nonfiction work, Age of Discovery.

In the book, Kutarna draws parallels between what was going on during the Renaissance in Europe at the time of Michelangelo, and what is going on in our world today.

He began his session by displaying a map of the world on the screen, with all of the world’s major air routes and air hubs superimposed on it. “95 percent of the world’s population now lives within 200 miles of a major airport hub,” he noted. “We are entering,” he said, “an age of pandemics.”

I should note the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic was just beginning to spread at that time, but no lockdowns were yet in force in the Americas or in most of Europe.

In an excerpt from the book

Forgot your username or password?