一位旅行顾问如何应对澳大利亚的大火
byDaine泰勒/
As the raging bushfires that have plagued Australia since September continue with no clear end in sight, travel agents and their clients are understandably worried about what to do next. The constantly changing situation has led to widespread uncertainty about what destinations are safe to visit, and which are dangerous, either from the fires or the air quality.
创始人茉莉花Folden Folden-Diaz 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.
Currently, she has a family of five vacationing in Australia, and has been working around the clock to accommodate them amid the constantly changing situation plaguing the continent.
Addressing Client concerns
她的一位客户在国外时一直在与这种情况保持一致,并且想知道其行程的哪些方面必须改变。“因此,我们开始打电话给行程上的所有位置,并意识到火灾的严重性。”她联系了行程中的每个目的地,被迫保持不断变化的状况。一个目的地让她放心:“‘我们会没事的,风改变,一切都很好”,然后繁荣,几天后,它们被关闭了。我们必须搬迁并找到一个新的地方,那时我们只有一个月的旅行大约一周。”
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.”
She also has other pending trips to the region, and her clients are understandably concerned.
“Now there’s a client asking me ‘should I go? Is it safe? Does my insurance cover me if I don’t go?’ and it’s a group of about 12 people.”
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.
“It’s important to support tourism [in the region]. When asked about how to help, my response has been pretty uniform across the board. When you go to a destination, you support the people, and right now they need it. They need the money, you should go, definitely,” said Folden.
“I would never send anybody anywhere unsafe, so I tell everyone to look at the most current news. I try to default to what the government is saying and what the travel advisories are saying. Then I encourage people, if it is safe, to think about supporting the people there on the ground level.”
Staying on top of the situation
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.”
“This has been very interesting for us, because one day everything is fine, and then the wind changes, the fires move and the whole scenario changes.”
Contacting and organizing an emergency response for her clients has represented a new type of challenge for her agency. “It’s way different deal than being a travel agent.”
It’s been a busy few weeks for her agency. “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.”
“我们花费大量时间来保护人们,而失去佣金是一个很大的影响。老实说,我甚至都不知道什么钱和美分会摇晃,但是我知道,计划其他客户所花费的时间是有影响力的。”
对代理商的建议
她建议其他可能与她相似的代理商,建议适当的旅行保险,并始终有计划。I’m not a hundred percent sure about its containment, but I’m worried about the air quality.”
旅行顾问确实必须平衡他们的恐惧与最适合客户和整个目的地的恐惧。“有些地方试图正常运作,尽管我什至不知道这是怎么可能的。”
Though this is far from the first ecological disaster she’s had to deal with on behalf of her clients, it is by far the worst and most far reaching.
“我住在佛罗里达州,所以我看到很多飓风和奇怪的天气模式在这里经历……但是显然没有这样的飓风。我们实际上是在大陆层面上将一个家庭置于一个地点。确实,很难理解它的巨大规模。”
为解决方案做出贡献
在持续的灾难之后,Folden正在更加认真地研究气候变化的作用如何促进该问题,以及她的代理机构如何努力抵消这些影响。“我还不知道如何改变自己的业务以更多地支持气候行动主义。我会租用私人喷气机,然后出售机票,有时我出售巡游,这些是机器不起作用的巨大方面。”
“这使我认为有我可以做的事情,或者应该做的以提供帮助,甚至可以消除我的行业所做的一些贡献。
“I’ve looked at carbon offsetting, and I’ve thought about a percentage of our sales going to carbon offsetting. That’s the conversation that has been going through my mind, how can I be part of the change in my industry.”
有关大火影响哪些地区的最新信息,请访问Australian Tourism Website.
And for those interested in donating to the local fire departments’ efforts to contain the blazes, you can donate directly to the state fire authority in both Victoria and New South Wales, two of the states hardest hit by the fires. To donate visit theVictoria fire department’s website和新南威尔士消防局网站.