How One Travel Advisor is Dealing with the Fires Raging Across Australia
经过戴恩·泰勒(Daine Taylor)/
自9月以来困扰澳大利亚的狂暴丛林大火持续下去,看不见,旅行社及其客户会担心下一步该怎么做。不断变化的局势导致人们对哪些目的地安全访问以及哪些危险的危险或空气质量危险。beplay银行卡
Jasmine Folden, Founder of Folden-Diaz, a California-based luxury travel agency, and affiliate of CADENCE, a Virtuoso Agency, is currently dealing with the stress of monitoring the ongoing crisis for her clients that are currently in Australia, as well as staying abreast of the issue for her client’s pending trips to the region.
目前,她在澳大利亚有一个五口之家的家庭,并且一直在全天候工作,以适应困扰非洲大陆的情况。
解决客户的疑虑
她的一个客户已经跟上的situation while abroad, and was wondering what aspects of their itinerary would have to change. “So we started calling all of the places on the itinerary and became aware of the severity of the fires.” She contacted every destination on the itinerary and was forced to stay on top of the ever-changing situation. One destination reassured her “‘we’re going to be fine, the winds changed, everything is fine’” and then boom, just days later, they’re closed. We had to relocate and find a new place for him to be and at that time we were only about a week into the month-long trip.”
Before looking into the problem in depth, “I really didn’t understand how many fires there were, and how limited our options started to become, because all these other guests needed to be reprotected and relocated, so a huge percentage of availability was already taken up.”
她还进行了其他未决的旅行,她的客户很担心。
“现在有一个客户问我‘我应该去吗?安全吗?如果我不去,我的保险会覆盖我吗?’那是一群约12个人。”
Although she likes to remain neutral when organizing trips for her guests, and she never want to put them in a position where they’d feel unsafe, she does say that for those who want to help Australia through the crisis, vacationing and spending your travel dollars in the area will go a long way towards helping the region.
“在该地区支持旅游很重要。当被问及如何提供帮助时,我的回应整体都非常统一。当您去目的地时,您会支持人们,现在他们需要它。他们需要这笔钱,你应该走,”
“我永远不会将任何人发送到任何不安全的地方,所以我告诉大家看最新的新闻。我试图默认政府在说什么以及旅行咨询在说什么。然后,我鼓励人们,如果是安全的话,请考虑在地面上为那里的人们提供支持。”
保持状况的最佳状态
Tracking the fire’s progress has been a difficult task, “[up-to-date news] hasn’t really been widely publicized, so I really had to go to Australian news outlets to try to find information, and also try to constantly call the properties.”
“这对我们来说非常有趣,因为有一天一切都很好,然后风变,大火移动,整个情况都会改变。”
与她的客户联系并组织紧急响应已代表了她的代理机构的一种新类型的挑战。“这与成为旅行社不同。”
对于她的代理商来说,这已经很忙了几个星期。“I didn’t sleep right for like four days, because Australia is on a completely different time zone, and my client is texting us in the middle of the night and we’re like literally running around trying to find a place for him.”
“We spend immense amounts of time trying to protect people, and the loss of commissions has been a big impact. I honestly don’t even know what the dollars and cents will shake down to, but I know that the amount of time it takes away from planning for other clients has been impactful.”
Advice for agents
She advises other agents who may be in a similar position as her, to recommend the appropriate travel insurance, and to always have a plan B. “Melbourne and Sydney are my top concerns, because I know that there were fires around the city, and I’m not a hundred percent sure about its containment, but I’m worried about the air quality.”
Travel advisors really have to balance their fear with what’s best for clients and the destination as a whole. “There are some places that are trying to operate as normal, though I don’t even know how that’s possible.”
尽管这远非她必须代表客户处理的第一次生态灾难,但这是迄今为止最糟糕,最遥远的事情。
“I live in Florida, so I’ve seen lots of hurricanes and odd weather patterns come through here…but obviously there’s been nothing like this. We’re literally shuffling a family from spot to spot on a continental level. Truly it’s difficult to fathom the sheer scale of it.”
Contributing to the Solution
In the wake of the ongoing disaster, Folden is taking a more serious look at how the role of climate change has contributed to the issue, and how her agency can work to offset those effects. “I don’t yet know how I can change my business to support climate activism more. I charter private jets, and I sell airline tickets and I sometimes sell cruises, and those are huge aspects of the machine that are not working.”
“This has made me think is there something I could be doing, or should be doing to be helpful, or maybe even neutralizing some of what my industry contributes to.
“我已经看了碳抵消碳的抵消,并且考虑到碳抵消碳的销售额一部分。这就是我想到的对话,我如何成为行业变革的一部分。”
For up-to-date information on what areas have been affected by the fires, visit the澳大利亚旅游网站。
对于那些有兴趣向当地消防部门捐款遏制大火的人,您可以直接向维多利亚州和新南威尔士州的国家消防局捐款,这是两个州受到火灾最严重的州。捐赠访问维多利亚消防局的网站, and theNew South Wales fire department website。