旅行顾问在Inbound covid-19测试的结尾处松了一口气。
经过多里·萨尔茨曼(Dori Saltzman)/When asked about how they or their clients feel about the end of the U.S. inbound COVID-19 testing requirement, travel advisors kept repeating one word: relief.
“我与之交谈的每位客人的巨大集体松了一口气,” Travelsavers成员代理商Becky's Travel Biz的所有者Becky Smith说。
Richard Stieff, owner of a Cruise Planners franchise echoed Smith. “Clients are just starting to reach out. General consensus is a feeling of relief!”
合奏旅行集团成员进化旅行者的总裁贾斯汀·史密斯(Justin Smith)告诉TMR,“我认为举起Covid测试使人们对任何明显的成绩都感到宽慰。”
签名成员代理机构Whirlaway Travel总裁Jamie Jones表示,撤销的消息是她星期五早上可以得到的最好的消息。“我们的客户很高兴听到取消了测试要求。我们不必提出很多问题 - 大多数只是明白了。”
Dream Vacations franchise owner Rhonda Day agreed, as did Penny Rushing, owner of Four Points Travel, an independent agency in the Avoya Network.
“The clients that I have that are scheduled to travel this summer are thrilled,” said Day. “I have been telling guests for a couple of months that we were hoping it would be soon, but when the days just kept passing I was starting to wonder.”
“我的客户很激动,” Rushing说。
A Reason to Worry
The sense of relief is understandable. Both Stieff and Jones mentioned relatives that had recently gotten stuck overseas because of positive COVID-19 tests.
在琼斯案中,她和她的母亲在妈妈的阳性测试阳性后被困在斯洛文尼亚五天。他们的旅行覆盖范围,琼斯在妈妈康复时喜欢探索斯洛文尼亚。
对于Stieff的姨妈来说,延期的价格为4,000美元,因为她的旅行保护下降。
It’s something many clients worried about.
“A group of us are going on a Princess voyage to Alaska next month and the biggest fear that most all guests had was when we fly back from Vancouver, they were very concerned about having to be quarantined for ‘x’ number of days before being allowed to fly home,” Becky Smith told Travel Market Report.
实际上,一些客户选择在飞行前从温哥华到西雅图进行五个小时的地面转移,以便避免测试要求。
更容易为客户服务
The end of the inbound testing requirement didn’t just provide advisors and clients a sense of relief. It also made advisors’ jobs a little bit easier.
Rushing告诉TMR:“这绝对使我的工作变得更容易,因为不必为客户提供如何以及在何处进行测试以及所需的文档。”
“I have had a lot of ‘what if’ questions from guests, so those are finally put to rest,” Becky Smith said.
斯蒂夫补充说:“毫无疑问,事情会更容易。”
但是戴说,那里仍然有很多混乱。“在哪些地方需要疫苗,巡航要求等之间存在不一致之处。希望随着一切继续放松,会有更少的混乱。”
Jones told TMR the biggest thing the dropping of the testing requirement did for advisors was lessen the burden of having to deal with clients getting stuck internationally, especially in a Europe that was already “bursting at the seams.”
But she added that’s just a drop in the bucket at time when advisers are still dealing with service issues from providers, longer wait times and cancelled flights.
贾斯汀·史密斯(Justin Smith)还说,这一变化使“顾问和消费者的事情都更容易”,但补充说:“我认为没有人会被虚假的安全感拖延。尽管新政策的增量为90天,但必要时可以随时更改。”
他还担心,因为不再担心被抓住和隔离的人会选择生病的人会选择旅行,即使他们可能有covid-19。
“I also think this has the potential to be a double-edged sword… We have to be cognizant of the fact that COVID is still part of everyday life.”
Wave of Bookings Coming?
贾斯汀·史密斯说,这是一个救济许多travelers, he doesn’t think the change will result in the “tsunami of business” that some in the industry are predicting.
“First, everyone knew what the rules were, we’ve become accustomed to them, and once we saw the majority of outbound restrictions lifted, people wanted to travel. It was not my experience that the requirement to have a COVID test to return to the U.S. was a significant barrier to that. Second, the high cost of air right now will likely offset some of the bump advisors would otherwise see from the restriction being lifted.”