If Not Now, Then When?
Sólon B • Jul 03, 2020
As the traveling industry takes an unprecedented hit with the COVID-19 outbreak that has affected us worldwide, it seems that a lot of companies are uncertain about the future and if they will in-fact live to see through the summer. In Iceland about half of the travel companies were (and most still are)
in danger of going bankrupt. Seeing as how tourism contributes about 8.9% straight to the GDP, The Icelandic government decided to give some companies a fighting chance. Fast forward to the 15th of June when Iceland opened its borders to travellers who had to follow very strict guidelines. So for every traveler who came to visit Iceland had two options; go through scanning of the virus at the airport and pay a fee of 15.000 kr (1 USD = 138 kr)
then wait 24 hours to hear the results from the scanning, for the second option you could arrive in Iceland, skip the scanning but then you would have to quarantine for two weeks in a safe place. A Lot of domestic travel companies were unhappy that their customers had to pay extra to access the country seeing as how Iceland is already very expensive, so the price had been lowered to meet them halfway at 11.000 kr and 9.000 if paid upfront, those who are born in 2005 or later are exempt from these restrictions. As you can imagine this whole turmoil has resulted in a total loss for the tourism industry in Iceland and little to no traffic for travel companies throughout the summer, which is supposed to be their most busy season.
For someone who has dipped his toes in the water of both the domestic and foreign travel industry, it seems that the time for taking a step back, thinking over your strategy for the future and finding ways to improve your business is as good as it gets. “There is always opportunity in the crisis” is a quote that I find very fitting for the current situation and something that companies and especially travel companies, should take advantage of.
We at TripCreator realised that companies would most likely not be looking to pay extra for external help, so they found a new way to get more traffic while simultaneously helping businesses through the COVID-19 crisis. The COVID plan is an agreement of sort within the Plus
plan, which is the middle subscription plan in terms of cost and features available. When you sign up for the COVID plan you get a free plus subscription till September 2020 and after that you commit to paying for the plus plan until march of 2021. This gives companies the flexibility to explore the system and learn the ins and outs before using it. With this I see an opportunity for all the travel companies to come back stronger and more productive for the coming tourist wave, so my question to those who are not using this time of low traffic to improve their businesses, if not now then when?. Let’s face it, the time when everything is at a 110% and your calendar is more than full, there will be little to no time to focus on different solutions or rebuilding. The purpose of the new COVID plan from TripCreator is to allow individuals to use this time for improving and moving forward instead of staying stagnant and not being prepared for the next season.
When you sign up for TripCreator at the pricing page here: https://www.tripcreator.com/pricing
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