How One Advisor Shifted Her Business During COVID-19

In her 42 years in the travel industry, Donna Flanigan, travel consultant/groups coordinator for Donna Flanigan’s Travel By TPI in Cornwall, Ontario, has never seen the world of travel in complete shutdown.

Like so many advisors, going through this unprecedented time has presented a whole new set of challenges, from commission payments, to rebookings, to simply surviving during a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic.

Nevertheless, advisors are extremely agile, and have adapted to this new travel environment just like they have so many times in the past. Flanigan shared some new short- and long-term strategies she’s implemented as she awaits our “new normal.”

For Flanigan, her first priority in early March was to contact each and every client regardless of where they were “to assure them that I was here to get them home to Canada as quickly as I could.” That was no small feat, as she had 170 clients in various countries across the world, from South Africa to Spain to Italy and Portugal to the Caribbean and the Philippines.

“My first priority was to make sure all my clients knew I was here to help them with whatever they needed,” she told Travel Market Report. “I was quick to reassure those clients who were waiting to travel and those who were already abroad, or en-route to their destination, that they would be updated with all the information regarding future travel credits and changes in return flights back to Canada.”

Flanigan worded every day protecting flights and bringing not only her own clients, but at least 21 others who booked online and were left stranded, home safely to Canada.

From there, she immediately began to send new updated invoices out advising clients of the new future travel or cruise credit information and updated them constantly as the policies changed almost daily.

Most of her days are spending rebooking river or ocean cruises with new dates in 2021 or 2022, she said adding, so far, all of her future cruise credits have been rebooked for new dates. Some of Flanigan’s corporate clients have already started to book flights for next month.

As for strategies moving forward, Flanigan said staying in contact with your clients is key. “They need to have confidence that you are taking care of them and keeping them updated on any and all information due to COVID travel restrictions.”

For long-term success, take the time to update their client lists, get caught up with paper work, and make that yearly business plan, which is so important even in these trying times.

Reconnect with old clients, existing clients, and “let them know you are there for them whenever they decide to travel again. Put some travel ideas out there for them to think about, get their bucket list of destinations, and put a tentative package together to get them thinking and excited to travel again.”

“I believe that COVID-19 has proved that having a travel professional work on your behalf, not only adds to their travel experience to guide you in making good travel choices, but they are there for you when you need them, Flanigan said.

“Travel professionals are definitely the way to book travel, and boy do we have lots more amazing memories to make for our clients.”