So what can I write about the Wuhan coronavirus that hasn’t been written about already? How many new cases? How many more infections? How many more countries?
What can I write about it and its worst possible timing? That it happened during Lunar New Year, the biggest travel season for China, when millions and millions of Chinese head home for family reunions, and others travel abroad for their holidays, and then you have all the overseas Chinese communities – people like me – also travelling back to our hometowns or for holidays.
Literally, masses of people on the move to usher in the Year of the Rat – and what a bad Rat this is, causing such mayhem, mischief and misery. My heart breaks for all those families in China who were unable to have their annual reunions this year.
What can I write about it and its potential impact on tourism, that you don’t know already? There are enough reports and posts on an increasingly anti-social media of how badly destinations in Asia will be affected.
The short-term impact will for sure be hard. The ban on group tours, as well as the suspension of sales of packages of hotels and airlines tickets, by the Chinese government will be felt across the world, more so in Asia of course. Thailand, Japan, Singapore, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia– every country in the region has grown to depend on China for visitors and their shopping. We don’t need numbers to tell us that.
In fact, over Lunar New Year, messaging with travel industry friends in China, some were speculating that maybe all Chinese travellers will be banned, and I got to thinking, is that even legal, to ban an entire country from travelling? I heard North Korea had banned travellers from China but that’s North Korea. Would any other country do it? With today’s crazy politicians, who knows.
My mind boggles thinking about how you can “lock down” an entire province of 11 million people – that’s more than twice Singapore’s population. Well, if anyone can do it, China can, and it appears to be doing all it can and perhaps after this is over, people will applaud the country for taking the measures it is doing now to curb the spread.
Further afield, Australia – battling its own crisis with the forest fires that dominated the news for most of December and January. The fires are still raging, just that the media’s now raging over another crisis, and now Australia has launched a A$20 million domestic tourism campaign to ask Australians to stay home in 2020. The domestic marketing campaign is part of a $76 million tourism recovery package announced by the federal government as part of the National Bushfire Recovery Fund.
I wonder what package China will put together to resuscitate its inbound tourism after this Wuhan scare blows over. Last year, at its 20th anniversary, Trip.com Group’s chairman James Liang gave a passionate speech about championing inbound tourism to China, saying for a country of its size, China was punching below its weight.
He pointed out the pain points to work on – visas, Internet access, payments and lack of English – as well as an image problem, saying it is vague with no strong selling point, it is deemed not safe and heavily polluted, it is perceived to be distant and strange, strong but unsociable and “for some people, threatening”.
Well, it will have even more work to do post-Wuhan.
For now, the group is trying to contain the immediate problems of cancellations and has launched a “Safeguard Cancellation Guarantee”, urging partners around the world to offer a free cancellation policy for customers who have booked travel plans with a check-in date through early February.
Just as health authorities around the world are working to contain the virus, travel industry players are working to contain the damage. The good thing is, we have been through this before with the SARS crisis of 2003. True, every virus is different but we can use lessons learnt during 2003.
One, don’t panic. Let it blow over, let the authorities do their work, and you do yours. Put in place the right measures and procedures to keep employees and customers safe, prepare for the day of recovery, restore confidence of travellers and when they return, welcome them with joy and generosity. A respite is also a good time to reflect – how to have more diversity in customers; do things you don’t usually have time for, like read and learn; launch new initiatives …
(Note: This Foreign Policy article offers sensible advice on how to protect yourself.)
Two, don’t stop doing your necessary work. During the height of the SARS crisis, I recall travelling to Hong Kong to run an event, on the condition that I did a self-quarantine at home on return to Singapore. In fact, I would argue that all work is necessary to ensure tourism stays strong and prosperous. We are resilient, yes, but we are also creative and resourceful. We need to pull out all stops to make sure our industry stays healthy – from Hong Kong to South Korea to Australia to China, we are all in this together.
Three, don’t stop travelling. During the SARS crisis, I joined a cruise out of Barcelona and the only condition I had to agree to was to have my temperature checked every morning, since I came from a SARS-affected country. Fortunately, the doctor was very good looking and that helped me start my day right.
Four, look for interesting news to distract yourself from bad news. For example, I got a press release from Raffles today, offering an entire island, Raffles Maldives Meradhoo, for rent. For US$1 million, you can do an “all-inclusive island buyout” and you can treat up to 70 of your own guests for four-night, five-day stays for a limited period. There are other perks, too numerous and minute to detail here but hey, sounds like a good place to get away from all that bad news, viruses and all.
I do wonder if they will include temperature checks.
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