Coronavirus COVID-19 has made amendments to the plans of millions of people, including mine. Our sea cruise to the Greek islands from Venice was canceled due to the announcement of the pandemic. And I really wanted to celebrate the “birthday” in Italy, among friends and partners. After all, more than 20 people from Samara and Syzran booked cabins on one of the ships of the MSC cruise company fleet.
I was looking forward to combining my anniversary with the constantly festive atmosphere of the cruise ship. Once again I will discover new cities and countries. But, alas! Not now.
The industry is suffering losses, but maintains its brand.
Many of our friendly company, in addition to booking the cruise itself, have already bought air tickets and booked hotels in Venice. My wife and I and another couple were planning to live in this beautiful city for 5 days before the cruise ship departed.
As you understand, certain funds were spent. Bonus points for the cruise itself have, of course, been returned to the personal account of each Incruises club member. But at first, not everything was clear about the refund for the flight and hotel.
I don’t know how many people buy returnable air tickets, I somehow never thought about it before and, in order to save money, I took regular, non-refundable ones. According to the rules, if you cancel a flight, a small part of the ticket price is refunded.
In the current international situation, most air carriers have met their customers halfway and are returning the entire amount for the air ticket. After all, the pandemic does not last forever, and the company’s image can be lost instantly if you turn around.
The same situation applies to hotels. We booked the apartment through Airbnb. According to their rules, when canceling a reservation, a service fee is withheld. But they also met people halfway and returned everything to the last penny. Nice.
What’s next?
Tourism is currently suspended due to the current situation. But this doesn’t make my love for travel any less. Quite the contrary, I feel a certain “hunger.”
No one has canceled business at the club, we continue to develop. And the savings of cruise dollars for future voyages around the world are growing monthly. This will improve the quality of cruises. It will be possible to book more expensive types of cabins and travel on premium and luxury ships.
And even if this unpleasant story with coronavirus lasts a year, people will not stop traveling. This craving for discovering something new and unknown is painfully strong.
Personally, my plans to see certain places of our beautiful planet in some order have not changed, the deadline for their implementation has simply moved forward.
Financial crisis
Of course, the pandemic due to the virus COVID-19 has hit the global economy, we are already feeling it. But financial collapses regularly disturb the economy, we can say we are already accustomed to this. It will pass this time too.
I would like to note that the president of our cruise club Michael Hutchison is primarily an anti-crisis manager. And this brings confidence that the development of InCruises is not under threat.
I know only two facts from his successful career, I am sure there are many more.
The first one is associated with Tony Robbins’ company. In the late 80s and early 90s, Michael brought Robbins’ company out of the financial crisis into the black.
The second is associated with Amway. Michael was invited as an anti-crisis manager at the end of the 90s and successfully turned things around for the company.
Draw your own conclusions. A person with extensive experience in overcoming complex financial problems now runs our company. So let’s break through!
“Take care of yourself and your loved ones! Everything will definitely work out!”.
Blog author Sergey Buslaev
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