10 Ways to Cope with the Coronavirus Outbreak
At London Heathrow today, entire corridors of the airport were entirely void of people — on what would otherwise be a frenetic Saturday morning. I estimate there were about 113 people on my flight to San Francisco, well less than half of the normal 266 passenger capacity for this plane.
It’s a fact that fewer people than ever are traveling right now due to fear of the coronavirus. What this means for culinary tourism professionals like you is that your source of income — whether customers or visitors — is now at risk. Travelers are taking fewer food/wine/beer tours. Vacationers are taking fewer cooking lessons in people’s homes. People are visiting wineries and breweries less. And because there are fewer travelers, restaurants are emptier than normal. These are just a few of the ways that our industry is being affected.
The coronavirus crisis is worrisome, but when life gives you lemons, we should be making lemonade. While we are not making light of the current global crisis, we prefer to take a positive approach and look at tactics that will help our industry to survive and prepare for the economic recovery that will eventually come.
We asked our global culinary tourism community how the crisis is impacting you, your business or your destination. We took your concerns and frustrations and compiled a list of recommendations to help you cope until things get back to normal. Until then, we hope and pray for everyone’s safety, and hope the ideas below will help you to cope.
1. WORK ON BUILDING YOUR BRAND
Now is the perfect time to take an inventory of what needs fixing in your business. You can finally get to those website updates you’ve been putting off. Fix your shopping cart, install a new booking engine or customer support tool — those kinds of things. Or maybe it’s time to completely revamp your entire website. Working with a developer remotely is perfect. You can schedule calls via Zoom or WhatsApp and stay safe at home.
Also consider reviewing all of your website content. It seems that everyone’s attention span has decreased dramatically in the past decade. No one has the time or patience anymore to read long, flowing paragraphs, no matter how well-written or informative they are. Think “staccato” to describe the new way you need to write. In professional media training, we are taught to convey no more than 2–3 points at one time in an interview. Otherwise, the readers or listeners are overwhelmed. Same with web writing. Bullet lists good. Long paragraphs bad. The exception would be a great story. People always love a great story. If your story is interesting and compelling, then please, write on. Take a good, hard look at your website’s content. Is it time for a refresh?
2. TEACH SOMETHING
People are scared of traveling, and some are even scared to leave their homes. Yet as long as the internet is still up and running, we can all still communicate. That means we can continue to learn from each other. What can you teach? Are you an expert on something in particular? What are you passionate about? You might be able to give a recorded cooking lesson on YouTube, or create a video tour of your city using footage you already have from past trips. Think “show and tell” — anything that will get your brand name out there.
If you’re thinking more about teaching professional skills, why not hold a webinar? Zoom lets you hold meetings of up to 100 people for around US$150 per year. Hint: you don’t need expensive webinar software. Just use meeting software and mute the participants. You can deliver from a PowerPoint, show videos or just talk in TEDx-style.
Consider interviewing others in our field. We host a monthly Town Hall member meeting where we interview interesting industry professionals with something interesting to share. We also host our monthly Eat Well, Travel Better: The Business of Food Travel Podcast. You could do something similar. One caution: try to create something unique and useful. Don’t regurgitate content that is available in so many places. Think new and different. Add value and create something new. Then market the heck out of it, putting your company name front and center in all your marketing communications.
3. LEARN SOMETHING
If you don’t want to teach, then why not learn something instead? Improve your skills with courses on a platform like Udemy. Get better at strategy, marketing and sales. Learn from others who are great at what they do. YouTube has a lot of good information, but you also have to weed through a lot of junk. There are many different learning formats. Consider Kindle books and Audible audio books. We offer a Masterclass on Food Tourism & Food Travelers Today in our World Food Travel University. And don’t forget about thought leadership websites like Medium — a great source of inspiration for many professionals.
4. GET A CERTIFICATION
Turn your learning and experience into something that will help you make sales later: get a certification for yourself or your business. Get trained as a professional tourist guide. Get a culinary degree. Get certified as a marketing automation consultant on a platform like Hubspot. Our Association offers certifications for culinary tourist guides in Europe and Singapore, and culinary tour operators anywhere in the world. There are a lot of options, all of which can generate revenue for you if you know how to package and promote your certification. Your certification will be well received by customers when people start buying again.
5. GENERATE LEADS
Notice we did not say, “go after sales”. People aren’t buying much right now, but that doesn’t mean they’ve stopped gathering information. Do you remember what happened after the 2008 financial crisis? People hardly spent anything for 3 years and then when they did, it was like the floodgates opened. However long the coronavirus crisis lasts, use this time to build your database. Find out who is downloading what from your website. Enhance your CRM system to collect more customer attributes so you can market to them more effectively later. You can also create new content like a downloadable guide or checklist that your customers and prospects will find useful. Get in a good position so when people start buying again, you will be in a great place to reap the benefits because they remember you. Research shows that marketing budgets dry up in a crisis. With less marketing noise today, it is easier for your brand to stay visible during a crisis.
6. EARN MONEY — DIFFERENTLY
No matter what kind of business you’re in, have you thought creatively of different ways to earn money until the crisis is over? For example, we talked above about teaching a cooking class on YouTube. Why not host a formal Masterclass, perhaps with multiple sessions, in your subject matter — and charge for it. Whether it’s cooking, email marketing, website design, installing booking software or whatever it is, you can create a class and sell it on an online platform like Udemy.
Another option is to teach online classes for people who want to learn the language you speak. You don’t have to be a professional or licensed instructor, and there are many different types of language classes you could teach. Let me explain using English as an example. You could teach English for students heading to university, for business people who travel frequently to your country, or for expats who are living and working abroad. Some people just want conversation practice. How fantastic to be paid just for talking! People want to learn more than English — you can do the same thing with Spanish, Mandarin, Korean, Arabic and other languages. There are several online platforms that let you advertise and charge for your services to prospective students.
What other skills can you put to use? For example, are you good at video editing? Get set up on a platform like Fiverr, where you can do simple tasks cheaply, or charge add-ons for more complex tasks and projects. These jobs might not replace your current income, but they will certainly help your savings to go further until economies recover and people start spending again.
7. REDUCE EXPENSES
If your business literally has stopped dead in the water right now, take immediate steps to minimize your business expenses. Can you pause software subscriptions? Put new equipment orders on hold. Avoid hiring new people, and reduce hours of your current staff. Don’t despair. These are short-term measures to help preserve your cash until the economic ship rights itself and things return to business as usual.
8. CATCH UP ON READING
Do you remember reading? We used to do a lot of it, and now we do a lot less of it. No matter if you prefer paper books or the electronic versions, now is a good time to catch up on your reading. Get lost in a great piece of fiction, or learn something new from a non-fiction work. Chances are you’ve already got a stack of real or virtual books that are waiting for you.
9. BUY LOCAL
While travelers are traveling less right now, all local residents still need to shop for food and supplies. Make an effort to spend your money first in locally owned stores, which will be the hardest hit. We don’t just mean local food stores, but local restaurants, bars and cafes too. Just be careful — don’t shake hands, use alcohol gel, and wear a face mask if you wish, but as long as you are healthy, you can still go out and be a functioning member of society. You can be brave and show your support — carefully. And if eating out is not an option because restaurants are closed, or have been ordered to be closed, buy a gift card that you can use there later, when the situation is normal once again.
10. GO ON VACATION YOURSELF
What better way to show your support for our industry than to actually go on holiday yourself? Obviously the destination you choose needs to make sense and be relatively low risk. But put yourselves in the shoes of suppliers just like you, elsewhere in the world. They’re hurting for business too. If you’re a food tour operator, visit a new city and introduce yourself also as a food tour operator. At the very least, you’ll have a good time. You might also make some great contacts, or get inspiration for your own business.
Updated: March 18, 2020: In light of complications with travel, i.e. countries closing borders, flights being cancelled and hotels shutting down, on the last item #10, we recommend waiting until it is safe to travel again.
HOW ARE YOU COPING?
What are you doing in your business or destination to mitigate the changes you’re currently experiencing because of the epidemic? Are you chewing on sour lemons or making a nice lemonade? Share your comments & suggestions below.
