Jamie Biesiada
To borrow a "Yogi-ism" from baseball great Yogi Berra, it feels like deja vu all over again.
It's March. We're in the grips of a global pandemic. No one knows exactly when travel will return to meaningful volumes, let alone what, exactly, it will look like when it does. Planned in-person events are again being pushed back.
In the small Jersey Shore town where I'm the chair of the Tourism Commission, we're in the same place we were this time last year. We want to plan events to draw visitors to our town, but will we be able to do so safely? Will we even be allowed to hold large, outdoor gatherings by the time they roll around? Is it better to plan an event and possibly cancel or just let another year go by without our annual bike parade, or fireworks, or celebration of our beloved Manasquan Inlet?
For Gloria Hobbins, founder of Global Village Travels in Monroe Township, N.J., the effects of the coronavirus began in January 2020. She had around 100 bookings to various destinations in Asia -- about half in China -- where Covid-19 was already spreading rapidly.
As is the case for many advisors, it wasn't the first time Hobbins faced hurdles in the travel industry. In fact, she got her ARC appointment just three months before Delta announced it would cease paying commissions in the mid-'90s; she would later give up the appointment and affiliate with a host. Then, when she was specializing in meetings planning and incentive travel, 9/11 struck; she lost close to 80% of her business. She built it back in the intervening years only to get hit again by the Great Recession.
Gloria Hobbins
Since then, Hobbins has focused on leisure travel -- FITs specifically -- and group business. The pandemic took what would have been a "banner year" in 2020 and reduced it to essentially nothing, revenue-wise.
"We've been through a whole lot," Hobbins said, but "we've never seen anything like this."
Today, it might feel like deja vu all over again, but it's looking more and more like the beginning of the end of the crisis.
Vaccines continue to roll out across the country. It's been slower than most had hoped, but it is progress, and forward bookings are starting to reflect that.
"I noticed that the phone started ringing once the vaccines came into play," Hobbins said.
Most of Hobbins' trips on the books are for 2022. A lot are tours, and a number of her clients are looking forward to returning to Asia. She has booked some cruises, but the moving date of when large-scale cruising will restart has softened that area of her business a bit.
Many are predicting a travel boom once restrictions begin to lift and more and more of us are vaccinated. Hobbins personally believes it will be a slower return -- especially for her clients, many of whom are seniors. What is happening with Covid-19 in other destinations will also play into that, she said, especially if case numbers are higher or vaccine rollouts are slower.
But, she said, she certainly expects to stay in business, despite the hurdles, as do so many of the other advisors I speak with regularly.
To borrow another Yogi-ism, used to describe the 1969 World Series-winning Mets: We were overwhelming underdogs.