We didn’t travel much since last summer, we haven’t been able to travel at all for a few days! For travel agencies, it is not easy to overcome the crisis, and going to France is not easier. Here too, new technologies provide palliatives for distant journeys.
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The windows of tour operators always display dreams on images of distant horizons. With the health crisis and its attendant restrictions on movement, the list of destinations is shrinking like hell!
Many brands are keeping the curtain down or have adapted their hours. However, those who continued were able to invent new and original activities.
Custom or catalog travel
Pascale Rondeau is an independent tour operator, she offers tailor-made trips, her office has remained open since the start of the crisis. It is the Internet weary clientele who came to compensate for the shortfall. “There were 50% of clients who wanted to postpone immediately, who were able to leave and benefit from their vacation, and then 50% for professional reasons do not yet have vacation dates, and we cannot establish travel plan for them “.
At Choletais Jean-François Richou, turnover fell by 85% in 2020. Work has been reduced to one day per week. Remote or in the office.
The tour operator is banking on its new catalog to relaunch the activity. “The idea is to invite people to project themselves in the spring, in the summer, in the fall according to the destinations but that they make projects, that we can record them and then assure the most. possible departures depending on health constraints “.
Travel virtually
Another solution while waiting for better days: bring the blue beaches of the seas of the south to you! In this EHPAD, residents can “travel” … with virtual reality headsets! “You can see,” traveling “is not the exact term, for me traveling is different” remarks Étiennette Bocquel, a resident of Bois Joly.
It was Ehop Voyage, a company specializing in virtual reality videos, which developed this idea, long before the start of the pandemic. “People tell us, my mom was traveling, she can’t anymore, coronavirus or not coronavirus, there are plenty of people who won’t be able to travel” indicates Valentin Guinberteau.
Covid-19: in Angers, the virus is forcing the clientele of tour operators to become sedentary, they are innovating!
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Traveling by videoconference
Arthur Thénot organized trips to South America. When stationary, he had the idea of continuing the meetings through workshops run by local service providers. That evening, he’s live in Marisol’s kitchen in Mexico, a trip and a videoconference meeting: “We have a double problem is to continue to be visible and to animate our community of travelers and especially to keep a link with our local partners who have experienced a very hard confinement. For example, in Argentina, it lasted 6 months. It allows them, from home, to share a friendly moment with travelers, that’s what they like to do “.
A meeting followed by fifteen people. Partners are paid on connection for each intervention. An alternative to keep in touch, even from the other side of the planet!
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