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In this ongoing series, we explore how humans of travel are mitigating the ongoing COVID19 outbreak. Prashant S More – International Tourism & Destination Management Consultant pens his thoughts today.
It’s been 23 years in the Travel & Tourism Industry for me. I work as a Destination Management Consultant representing the leading DMCs from Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam & Cambodia. We all are facing one of the worst situations on an industry-wide scale along with the entire world.
Since June 2019, due to huge damage to the travel and overall all the sectors, India experienced a massive loss due to heavy rains, floods and cyclone situations in many states. This continued till the end of December 2019.
We all hoped that in 2020 there will be a boom in the travel sector on both the domestic and international front. It started well with many FIT and group bookings for travel dates starting from February 2020 right up to June 2020. We as G.T Holiday & Tourism Training handle B2B segment and many travel agents paid us full advance for group bookings to many countries. Around the middle of January, we started feeling the heat of COVID19, as travel agents across India started sending us emails and spoke about cancelling or postponing the bookings. Passengers were fear-stricken to take-off amidst the spread of COVID19 all over the world.
It has been more than a nightmare since then. I as an individual depend totally on the minimum mark-up of INR 100 or INR 150 per person into the volume generated on gross bookings. But, having no capital to sustain since the damage from June 2019 was just healing when the fire of pandemic almost ruined us.
Paying the loans, rents and other expenses is a big headache. We still have to pay taxes, rents, loans and there is no financial support from any source. The biggest tragedy of all is that every friend who would be an angel in need is in the same boat now.
We strongly hope and pray that a miracle happens and we all sustain and overcome this situation.
Source: travelnewsdigest.in
