With headlines blazing left and right and new developments occurring on a daily basis, it’s hard not to wonder if the Coronavirus, or COVID-19, should be a concern for your upcoming travel plans. We at Epperly Travel do not take this concern lightly and are working diligently with each and every traveler who has a question or a change regarding their plans. While this is new territory for everyone regarding the nature of the disease, the nature of who to trust and how to make your plans accordingly is not new territory for us as your travel agency partners. We believe in serving as gracious partners to our clients, as trusted resources, and equipping you with the details you need to know in order to make informed decisions. As such, we’ve provided a couple of our helpful tips that our team takes into consideration in order to better equip you during this time of uncertainty:
1) Include Your Advisor In Your Game Plan
While we as advisors can never make a decision for you, our job is to be a resource to you that’s on your team during this challenging time. Instead of throwing in the towel and making a decision based on what you see on the media, reach out to your advisor to find out their inside knowledge on the destination you’re traveling to. Additionally, as we train on a company-wide basis on how to serve as your best resource, we’re looking at more than just the black and white of go or cancel. We want you to have your options and we’ll do everything in our power to make those as clear-cut and helpful to you as possible. At this stage, most travel protection plans and suppliers are not offering full-blown refunds, even in affected destinations, but especially in spots that are not currently under watch by the CDC. It’s our goal to be good stewards of your time and investment. From what we’ve seen of our guests going to Italy and Japan, once the facts are laid out clearly from trusted resources (see below), there are not sweeping cancelations occurring but, instead, thoughtful conversations that involve education and strategy.
As this week has gone on, our advisors have developed game plans around pushing out final payment dates to provide traveler’s with more time to make decisions, postponing travel dates for guests who are flexible on when they can go, and rerouting travelers when that is their preference. In short: there’s a reason you hired us on. Let us be part of your team of resources so that we can provide you with all of the options available to you.
2) Be Diligent About Who You Trust
From what we’ve seen over the years when it comes to mainstream media, whether it’s in relation to Greece’s Economic Shutdown or Zika’s impact on the Caribbean or the deaths in the DR last spring is that most headlines are designed to create fear and hysteria – and they work. Think about it: you never seen the kind of buzz around those situations once they are resolved, and all three of those examples have, to different degrees, found resolution and clarity – but, by that point, the media was onto the next buzzword. Instead of clicking through any clickbait designed to make your pulse race, focus only on the facts, exactly like we do. Our most trusted sources are the CDC (their travel advice here), the WHO (their travel advice here), and the State Department. We recommend they be yours, as well.
Additionally, we have contacts on the ground in each and every destination we’re working with, and are able to provide firsthand insight on what’s really going on in that destination. We remain in constant contact with our partners to ensure that our traveler’s safety is top priority and that our resources are direct from the destination itself, not secondhand reporting.
We at Epperly are dedicated to ensuring you as our travelers feel comfortable and safe, no matter where in the world you go, and deliver your options in the most factual manner possible.
