You can’t really do anything when your income depends on promoting travel because let’s be honest, staying at home comes at a cost right..? #traveltimeout #savetourisim
As we all know that due to the coronavirus outbreak almost all the flights, events, and exhibitions are canceled, and hospitality marketers squeezing their budgets over coronavirus fears, travel influencers are struggling.
Dana H. Freeman, a very known travel influencer in Vermont, was supposed to mount a cruise ship from San Diego on Thursday, but all her bookings got canceled.
Sheri Griffiths, 45, a cruise influencer, answered all of her travel through April has been canceled over the past week.
Scott Eddy, a travel influencer and a marketing consultant, said, “In the past 48 hours, I have lost five campaigns,’ I do think they’ll come back to the table. Still, no one can predict when this will end. It’s all been put on indefinite hold.”
The estimated loss on his earnings as of Wednesday accounted more than $25,000 in income, he said.
Influencers who are currently on trips are faced with worries about how to get home, in some cases cutting their trips short.
Sarah Gallo, 27, one of the famous travel influencers, was on a sponsored trip but has been forced to change her plans multiple times over the last couple of days. She has supposed initially to venture Ethiopia after her time in the arctic, but as of Wednesday had reconsidered. She said, “I need to be careful about the places I’m visiting. I have to think, Is this where I want to be quarantined for a week or two months?” On Thursday, she continues to know that the Norweigan tourism board had canceled her trip, and she is now holed up in a cabin on a remote island.
She said, “It’s the perfect place to be quarantined, We have the most spectacular views, and we’re not around anybody. But at the end of the day, we’re still quarantined. We don’t know how we’re going to get home. We’re waiting day by day, hour by hour to find out what we can do.”
Just like Ms. Gallo, like many travel influencers, spends the majority of her year in the air and on the road, and lost travel means lost income. “I travel 10 months per year, and they’re all income-producing activities,” she said. In addition to canceled trips, she and other travel influencers are losing money as the public’s interest in travel nose-dives.
“The number of Vlogs is down, and numbers are down, social media numbers are down on travel, affiliate income is down because hotels aren’t being booked, people aren’t buying travel gear,” Ms. Gallo said. “There’s a chance some conferences I’m scheduled to speak at might be canceled. I’m losing speaking gig payment, tourism board payments, hotel payments. We don’t know when things will bounce back.”
Many influencers are turning to private Facebook groups to seek advice from colleagues about how to move forward. Posts in one group question whether the media is blowing things out of proportion. In contradiction, another post faults people for not taking the virus seriously enough. Many influencers report feeling in a state of purgatory. They’ve reached out to brands, but it’s nearly impossible to get any answers.
“It’s all changing so quickly,” said Selena Taylor, 29, a travel influencer in New York, as she packed for a flight to Amsterdam on Wednesday night.
“Currently, we are scheduled to go on nine cruises in the next couple months, they’re not canceled yet,” said Alyssa Griffin, 30, a cruise influencer. “But we work with the tour operators, my husband and I, and we’ve been having issues essentially with commitment. They don’t know what’s going to happen. Some are all gung ho, some say there’s nothing they can do right now.”
Other influencers have opted to delay posting until they can decide-out how to appropriately address the pandemic. “It’s a serious topic, and we don’t want to give any of the wrong advice,” said Sion Walton-Guest, 31, one-half of the travel influencer couple @theglobetrotterguys.
He added that they’ll likely advise their audience to follow the guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization.
“As a travel influencer, one has to be really watchful of your role and what you play in the travel space,” said Sarah Dandashy, who runs @AskAConcierge. Ms. Freeman, who has her own blog, wrote an article on her blog listing reports and policy updates from all the major cruise lines. She believed it was a way to allow her audience to make a choice about travel for themselves. “I wouldn’t want someone to feel like I’m urging them to keep traveling,” Ms. Dandashy, 37, said. Naturally, people who travel a lot for work face a risk of contracting the virus — and travel influencers’ careers are all about making aspirational content across the globe.
One of the famous Travel influencer couple Stefan Arestis and Sebastien Chaneac, who call themselves the Nomadic Boys and have 122,000 Instagram followers. They intend to stay home from a significant LGBTQ travel and tourism conference in Italy this year as a safety measure. However, they haven’t stopped traveling altogether, and are currently in Japan after visiting Thailand last month.
We would like you all to have a go through on some CORONAVIRUS TRAVEL TIPS by dailymail.co
As the novel coronavirus spreads across the globe, health experts advise plane travelers to sit in a window seat, disinfect their table trays and window blinds, and warn that wearing a mask won’t prevent infection. Officials say the best way to avoid catching the virus, which is spread through viral particles within mucus or saliva, is to keep your hands clean, disinfect your space, and avoid touching your face.
It is also advised that plane travelers choose a window seat to have less contact with potentially sick people. ‘Book a window seat, try not to move during the flight, stay hydrated and keep your hands away from your face,’ Vicki Stover Hertzberg, professor of biostatistics and bioinformatics at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, said.
Top tips include:
– Good hand hygiene: Frequently wash hands for at least 20 seconds or using hand sanitizer
– Disinfect your space: Bring your own wipes and wipe down window blinds, seat belts, armrests, touch screens, and tray tables
– Choose a window seat: Sit near the window and avoid moving around the cabin to limit exposure to potentially sick people
– Use touch screen with a tissue: Avoid contact with surfaces that may hold the virus
– Avoid touching your face: 2019-Nov is spread through viral particles in mucus or saliva. Avoid touching your face, and transferring germs picked up from surfaces
