Many villa owners have never planed to go through a pandemic outbreak. For now about 177 people are infected in Thailand. Even that Thailand is still not in the list of countries with ongoing Local transmission, the panic and travel regulation from other countries influence dramatically the number of tourists.
Tourism industrie and Food and beverage businesses are one of the firsts to be concerned. How to survive a Pandemic outbreak?
How to handle this new challenge?
When some business can find some easy solutions, as working from home for their employers, for companies who directly depends from the tourists arriving in the country, as holiday villas and hotels the situation is different. How to keep your company alive if people stops traveling?
“How to prepare a holiday villa business for an pandemic outbreak ?”
First thing to keep in mind is that any crisis is an opportunity! Let’s take the Coronavirus challenge with this easy recommendations!
Secondly, even that today the picture is unclear, one day or another the pandemic outbreak situation will be finished. Tourism Ministry hopes for post-virus bounce.
Communicate with your staff about the coronavirus
One of the most important things you need to do is to communicate with your employees (if you have a team in the villa). Many are feeling concerned about their health and how they can continue working, by all means they are in contact with customers. After all if your staff is confident, your guests will feel it too.
Then, you need to be sure that your staff understand why hyper hygiene is so important right now, and be sure that they have the right information. Nova-day internet is oversaturated with COVID-19 information, which sometimes get’s us into a panic.
Take an electronic thermometer to work. Check the staff before they start their shifts. It may look like too much, but better safe than sorry. If anyone has a fever or is experiencing worrisome symptoms, send them home and contact an hospital.
Make sure to follow the sanitary protocol requested by the gouvernement.
Hygiene is now hyper important! Sanitarize twice more than ever before
As the new coronavirus outbreak spreads, people are becoming increasingly nervous about hygiene. That could mean a panic feeling from your guess, so you should do your best to ensure customer confidence.
Use Alcohol-based hand sanitaizers, be aware that the gel must contain at least 60 percent alcohol. (Please, don’t try to use alcohol like Vodka, because it doesn’t work.)
Mind to clean “high-touch” surfaces, like phones, tablets, tv remotes, light switches, and handles. Apple recommends using 70 percent isopropyl alcohol, wiping gently. “Don’t use bleach,” the company said.
Remember to clean All your plastified communications inside the villa. For those who don’t have any yet, we’re here to create a custom made design for you.
PRO TIP: Inform your guests about the items that you sanitise with printed communication, make them feel safe!
If you offer tours to your customers, and handle the money, before providing it to the tour operator. Provide a hand sanitiser to your villa manger (or the staff responsible for that), as many bacterias can stay on the money. Ther’s definitely a reason why in China the money was recently disinfected with ultraviolet to prevent the coronavirus spreading.
Be cool with cancelations
All villas have cancelation policies, that often provide a full refund with a special quantity of days before the check-in.
In this special time, we recommend you to be more flexible. Show your professionalisms, and offer special conditions for the cancelations. Try to keep your guests with you, as they will probably come back later, or at least tell to friends how professional is your service.
Encourage to use a voucher with flexible dates
The best way to work with cancelation is to offer a flexible date. It means, that your guest can come back in the same season for the same number of nights, or top up the difference between seasonal prices.
In case if your guest request a cancelation and refund, make a step forward. Offer a free night for the next booking. As an option you can specify special conditions, like offer one free night, for a booking of 5 nights. This voucher could be personalized, or with the possibility to give it to a friend (or family member).
Today everything is in your power to make to guests come back into your villa, and not have the idea to search for another one.
If one night is not something that you’re ready to offer, think about a Thai traditional dinner, or a free of charge breakfast, or a tour. Mind that your goal is to make the guest come back in your villa.
PRO TIP: Add all the information about your social media on your voucher, or make the following of your accounts as a condition to use the voucher
Keep your customers informed about the visa and additional documents situation
Be the source of information for your guests. If your website SEO is done well, you can get new customers, who will search information about the visas and entrance conditions, and will find your website useful.
An informed guest, is a happy guest. Prepare your guests for any additional information, as for example the health certificate which in now required for several countries, as well as a quarantine – find the UPDATED information on the official website about the situation with the COVID-19.
PRO TIP: mention your property or a call to action for the booking on each post about the visa conditions
Take time to make your business ready for the end of the pandemic outbreak with a brand refresh
We all see how the night sales are dropping and the cancelations are increasing. First thing to remember is “Don’t Panic!”. You never had so much free time to make your business better.
Some ideas:
- Update visual communications in your villa, see our article about “The new life of old things”
- SEO of your website
- Training for your staff (could be on-line)
- Renovations or touch ups
- Re-branding
- Create a Mascot for your brand
- Review the list of all the guests who were in the villa and create a news letter list
- Review your agreements with rental agencies
- Update your villa description on booking websites
- Think about the countries which are not restricted and find travel agencies to collaborante with
- Invite a cleaning company for a deep cleaning
- Invite a photographer (the weather is perfect for great photos). Don’t know who’s the best? We can help you! Find our post about “Why not all the photographers deserves to be names Photographer”
- Check our post about “Why Real Estate agencies and booking websites are not enough”
- Check our Special solution offer for villa owners, so you’ll don’t need to think about that as we will take care to bring your villa to the next level and be ready to the end of the Pandemic outbreak
Crisis is an opportunity, isn’t it?
If you need help with new ideas, or the Marketing of your FNB business, we’re here to help you!
We offer onetime services, as Branding, Visual media, Promotional media and more.
We also offer monthly services as Social media support, as well as full marketing solutions holiday villas with a monthly fee.
FAMEsolutely is happy to help you to bring your business to a new level!
We like to share our experience and PRO TIPs, check out more of our blog posts below!
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