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G ADVENTURES Travel Weekly’s


Lucy Huxley


Travel Weekly webcasts: ‘Crisis opportunities’ and ‘bulldozed customers’ were AGENCY BOSSES


Kelly Cookes


Nick Marks


Bruce Poon Tip


Poon Tip points to ‘great opportunities’ of crisis


T


he travel industry is now the world’s “biggest start-up” and presents an opportunity for


entrepreneurs, says the founder of G Adventures. Bruce Poon Tip said Covid-19


had been a great leveller, adding: “This pandemic has created ground zero for travel and tourism. All businesses – Royal Caribbean, Hilton or whoever – we’re all at zero. “Travel is the world’s biggest


start-up right now. It might be the biggest start-up in history; it’s a $10 trillion industry. So we’re all waiting to see who makes it to the other side, what the customer is going to want, and decide how we get to reimagine and re-envision our businesses to cater for that. “For people who thrive as


entrepreneurs, that’s exciting; the opportunities are great. Of course, I wouldn’t have wanted this to happen. I’d love to have just stayed as we were – we were absolutely crushing it as a company until the end of February. “But now it’s about leadership


and making sure you take advantage 10 7 MAY 2020


of this crisis, because in any crisis in the history of time, even a market downturn, it creates opportunities at the same time. So I’m actually quite positive and optimistic. We’ve made those tough decisions, we’re the right size, we’ve cocooned and are on ice for a while, but we are going to make it to the other side of this. We’ve got cash and everything lined up. We have phases that we’ve executed and more phases if we have to, and now we have to keep everyone motivated for when we are starting up again. “We’re not going to return to


100% strength for a very long time. How big are we going to be on the other side? 50%, 60%, 75%? Those kind of decisions we have to make, but this has definitely united us.” Poon Tip said the industry’s


biggest challenge was “getting people back on planes and feeling safe to fly again”, and that travellers might not “ever be as carefree again”. He also predicted that the crisis


would force a tightening up of travel’s “comfortable circular economy”, acknowledging the refunds issue had been “troubling” customers.


Charles Duncombe


Duncombe: It’s better to call clients before they call you


P


roactively approaching customers to rebook holidays – and explaining where their money is – is


resulting in a much better rate of business retention, say agents. Charles Duncombe, director of


homeworking agency Holidaysplease, said: “When you get a phone call from a customer, they usually want a refund. Whereas if you go to them, the more receptive and sympathetic the customer is. If you say, ‘look, why don’t we err on the side of caution and rebook for another date?’, we find two-thirds to three-quarters of customers go with that.” Being totally transparent about


where their money is also helps, he added, saying: “Where [customers] can get a bit agitated is when you don’t give them any answers.” Nick Marks, joint managing


director at Baldwins Travel, said it was tough to keep up with all the different policies. “Every supplier has their own policies,” he said. “It’s very hard to keep up with what they’re doing.” Marks cited one operator that was


If you say ‘look, why


don’t you rebook for another date?’, we find most customers agree


originally offering refunds, only to change its policy two weeks later, resulting in a difficult conversation for the Baldwins agent to have with their customer. But he added that “70%-75%” of bookings had been transferred to a later date. Marks added that furloughed


agents were “desperately missing” being at work and wanted to help colleagues steer their businesses through the crisis. “They ask all the time what they can do to help,” he said. “Obviously we can’t accept it, but it’s so heartening to hear.” Advantage Travel Partnership


leisure director Kelly Cookes agreed. She said: “Your furloughed employees are playing as important a role as the people that are still in the business. That’s a really important message.”


travelweekly.co.uk


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