6 Corona Virus Opportunities for Travel Businesses

Oh yes, we like to be positive and we like a challenge, so here goes..!

1) Get rave reviews

If you’re only cancelling and refunding, and not selling, treat customers fairly and deal with their requests promptly, and you still have a chance of gleaning great reviews. Ask them if they think you handled this crazy situation well and request they post feedback online. Even if they cancelled or postponed, they can still bump up your overall ranking and visibility with 5-star comments.

2) Write engaging content

Time to pull up that list of things you’ve always meant to write about and start tapping away at the keyboard. Improve those product descriptions, blog yourself out, update your About Us, polish up that Powerpoint presentation and get imaginative with social media ideas. This quiet time is the perfect opportunity to bang out awesome content (and what we’re hoping to achieve here!)

3) Gain social media followers

Now you have time to write all that great content, you can use it on social media to gain new followers and build up a bigger audience for when the good times return. Don’t be tone-deaf, with people housebound it is not the time to try selling them trips. There are still plenty of great things you can post though (more ideas for that in a future article).

4) Make progress on website development

Whether you have an in-house (in-home?) team or rely on freelance developers on the other side of the world, web development has always been easily manageable with online tools. This makes it a great time to fix those broken links, get those product images popping, smooth out any bugs in your check-out process, or even build a new website!

5) Push product development

Ask yourself what sort of products customers will want to book when they’re allowed out again. Do you offer them already? If so, get ready to promote them big time. If not, well, now is the perfect time to speak to providers and develop new packages ready to launch.

6) Relationship management and hugs

Don’t forget all your service providers and staff are in just as much of a ditch as you are right now. Keep in touch with them by whatever means necessary, reassure them that as soon as this crisis is over you’re going to be ready to hit the ground running and send them plenty of work again. Be positive, give out some virtual hugs, we all need the support of others just now.

We’d love to hear other ideas too, so feel free to post them in the comments blow or post them online with the tag #travelbizcoronaopps