Who travels when ‘no one’ is traveling? (Coping with the Coronavirus effect)

Who is still traveling?

School is back in for much of the world. 

Summer/Winter holidays are pretty much over for many families.

With Coronavirus around many leisure travelers are not keen to venture out at the moment.  Event Organizers or Authorities are cancelling major events and conferences.

Business folk are staying home. 

You’ve probably already had cancellations, no-shows or seen bookings slow down.

Such doom and gloom in the world’s media at the moment.

But for a Stay Owner/Manager there are 2 big questions:

1. Who’s still travelling?

2. How are you dealing with business downturns?

Who’s still traveling

Well believe it or not digital nomads and location independents are extending and changing their locations. Many don’t have a home to return too, or its too far away because they’re on the other side of the world.

Their bolt hole is another nomad stay somewhere.

Remote workers, whether digital or personal are in this boat – they need to travel or rent traveler accommodation in order to continue to earn money.

So, when the majority of the world’s travelers (leisure or business travelers) are hunkering down at home there’s a growing mass of full-time travelers who continue to travel.

Heads-up: Expect Prices To Drop

Just a heads-up. With fewer travelers and occupancy levels dropping we’re expecting prices to also drop as properties try to attract a client. 

Now a lot of digital nomads are pretty cunning lifestyle-balancers.  If they can see a way to upgrade their housing.  Say from a 1 bedroom apartment to a 2 bedroom for not much more money during a downturn then many will grab the opportunity.

Nomad Stays are already seeing evidence of room upgrading from digital nomads

And if they’ve got visa time left in your country (one of the bigger issues for digital nomads) then they may be committing for a longer stay than they traditionally would have.  Either to take advantage of the lower prices or the uncertainty of the Coronavirus effects.

If they have to leave because they’ve run out of visa time, or simply want a change, we are also expecting a longer commitment for new stays.  Again for the same uncertainty of coronavirus effects and the opportunity of a better than normal deal.

How are you preparing?

The second question is what are you doing to prepare or deal with a downturn like this?

The fact is that you’ve still got a business to run.  You’ve still got bills to pay.

Apart from ensuring you’ve got rooms listed on Nomad Stays what else are you doing. ????

Let’s look at a few other options:

1. Close the doors for awhile
   1. Cutting is running is a bit drastic because of the effort needed to restart but may be a survival technique for some of the harder hit locations like northern Italy.
2. Reduce your staff
   1. Always a hard choice.  Not only because of the personal connections you have but the effort to get qualified staff again when you scale up next.
3. Redirect your efforts into property maintenance
   1. Instead of reducing your staff how about redirecting them to improving your Stay?  Gardening, painting, internet improvements, converting the restaurant into a coworking space, replacing the linen now the prices are dropping etc.
4. Put more time into social media marketing and branding
   1. Another ‘asset building’ exercise.  Get some new photos taken while the rooms are free. Start posting a bit more often to show the world you’re still here.  Talk about the new things in your Stay.
5. Undergoing Training Course
   1. Maybe now is  a good time to send the team on a training course you’ve been putting off. Hospitality301 courses, internet marketing courses, artificial intelligence training, there’s heaps of valuable options either in person or online today.
6. Checking/Fixing your Google/Bing Maps listings
   1. Simple digital housekeeping is always good to do.  Reviewing your website is another often overlooked issue.  What date is your site still showing at the bottom?  Are you looking like yesterday’s hero?  Are you looking like you’re closed? Maybe now is a good time to ‘put a new change of clothes’ on your website.
7. Did I mention ensuring you’ve got rooms listed on Nomad Stays? 
   1. Without rooms we can’t sell for you. ????  Now is a great time to update your listing
8. Research new markets and trends
   1. We scan 30-50 digital newspapers and magazines a day to keep an eye on what’s happening.  Are you keeping up to date on the changes?  Here’s a couple of our favourite sites:
      1. Skift
      1. Phocuswire
      1. Hospitalitynet

Hopefully this gives you a bit of an idea on positive ways to deal with the current downturn.