Will Travel Be Transformational After The Pandemic?

The Idea Of Transformational Travel

In February 2020, over 60 travel professionals representing over 200 businesses from around the world have arrived to the Washington Cascades for a gathering of the Transformational Travel Council, a Seattle based community united by one idea: travel transforms lives, and ultimately transforms the way we interact with the world, each other and ourselves.

We at YouLi — The Best Group Travel Solutions have always been believers in the power of travel to transform. We attended the gathering to discuss the possibility to change the travel industry itself and turn our collective idea of transformative, conscious, immersive, authentic, connected travel into reality.

Lightkeepers Are The New Business Leaders

2020 wasn’t a joke for most industries, but it became death for tourism as it is. As the forest fires burn their way through the wilderness, covid19 shut down the very majority of the travel industry, starting from the most vulnerable small tour operators on the ground.

The brightest leaders in the industry stepped in to open authentic spaces for the travel professionals to express. Some TTC Allies have started offering weekly sessions to keep the spirits up and nurturing wounded souls of travel experience creators drowning in uncertainty. We were adjusting to the new together, and our team has launched the YouLi Academy — a free educational resource for group tour operators looking to rebuild travel post-pandemic.

We spent hours coordinating meetups, discussing what’s relevant and bringing the best experts in the field — our way to stay connected with partners and clients. And our efforts paid off. While others paused, we developed within. In the slowdown of 2020 YouLi development team was able to deliver more new features than ever before. More importantly, we listened and delivered what was needed most, like free travel websites for every paid account to help small tour operators build online presence, and analytics tools to help travel enterprises grow and monetize audience (even when they are not taking bookings).

Is There Travel After The Pandemic?

Wildfires are raging. They know no mercy. They don’t adjust the path and don’t submit to prophecies, strategies or demands. But the most amazing creatures rise up from under the ground in the spring after the wildfires. Some seeds need hot temperatures to pop. So do innovative ideas and startups. We got burnt, now is the time to let new spouts out!

During a YouLi Academy class on Travel Marketing trends, the travel marketing gurus and co-founders of 10X Tourism Tour Operators Accelerator program shared the most common question they now get the tour operators:

“When should we start marketing again?”

“Capture the interest now” — the COO, Esmee Fitzgerald shares, — “even if you are not taking bookings yet. Build your audience and your email list, that will stand you in a better position than competitors. Connecting to customers is cheaper now, than it will be 3 months later.

Create a flexible refund policy, and openly communicate it with the clients. That will open wider perspectives and put you straight ahead of the competition. Combination of non-refundable deposits (“Holding Fee”) with flexible change policy at no cost are becoming more common and very valuable for operating in the environment of uncertainty.”

Welcome to the new dawn of travel

There is no denying, the world has been transformed. No overbooked airlines, no over-crowded wonders of the world, no over-polluted over-used, over-tired… It doesn’t feel like celebration yet. After all, we are just looking at the burned emptiness of the charcoals. But life gets reborn, it always does.

What new opportunities are out there? What new ideas have arrived with the death of over-tourism? What travel hybrids will be creating new previously unknown experiences? What partnerships will be formed between travel designers, educators, marketers, insurance agents and local communities?

Now we get to witness the birth of the new travel industry. Let’s bring all the wisdom of this fire to the benefit of all. Let’s rebuild, re-launch, reinvent the travel industry with:

• New more effective and intentional processes for your group bookings
• Smarter more integrated tools to grow your community
• Sincere and caring onboarding for your clients that doesn’t take up all your time
• Easier ways to track your marketing efforts
• Safer spaces to keep information about your itineraries, payments, legal forms, covid questionnaires and reports in one place.

Digital presence is becoming critical for tour operators of any size, so allow YouLi to be your tech partner or choice, and we will help you create, promote, fill in, and grow those transformational experiences that will build a new, better, wiser, more connected world!

• Easy White-Label Group Travel Management Platform (with interactive itineraries and free travel website on ANY paid plan)
• Custom Web Development
• Best Tech Consulting For The Travel Industry