Trove has partnered with Sundara Fund on a direct response fundraiser for India

The COVID-19 pandemic in India has raged out of control, and the health system is out of capacity. 400,000 new cases a day and there have been 215 542 deaths as of 5/2/2021, multiplying exponentially everyday. @trovetourism has partnered with @sundara_fund to support their fundraising effort for the emergency response and direct aid to families. India can use all help and soon there will be light at the end of the tunnel. We just need all hands on deck.

Link to Donate: Sundara Direct Response

Cambodia’s tourism roadmap and Siem Reap’s master plan for tourism approved

Cambodia has just announced their tourism roadmap for 2021-2025, a plan which will promote both tourism marketing in the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as sustainable tourism development. In addition, the Siem Reap tourism development plan for 2021-2035 was approved by the Ministry of Tourism.

These are two major moves that will support the development and bounce back of Cambodia’s tourism industry. The recovery roadmap is segmented in three stages:

1. Resilience and Restart: Crisis management in the New Normal and recovery preparation in 2021

2. Recovery: Rebuilding of Cambodia’s tourism industry after the COVID-19 crisis in 2022-2023

3. Relaunch: Full rebound of tourism in 2024-2015

Two fundamental strategic accomplishments like these mark major progress by Cambodia in achieving their post COVID-19 goals. More and more destinations around the world are re-assessing their tourism master plans and creating new plans for crisis management, public health, hygiene and community development. These are important areas of focus as destinations continue to plan for the future.

Also important for Cambodia in ensuring adequate follow through after the build of these documents will be the implementation of these strategies. There are a few critical questions that the Ministry of Tourism will need to answer:

1. What will the governance process look like for the implementation of these tourism strategies?

2. What are associated marketing campaigns that must be implemented to propel not only Siem Reap but the rest of the region?

3. How will the recovery plan support development of other areas in Cambodia, including the 4K provinces (Coastal provinces)?

4. What will on-going training of field offices and tour operators look like?

5. How will the Ministry of Tourism accurately gauge public sentiment both in and out of Cambodia in regards to comfortability around travel and Cambodia as a tourism destination overall?

Cambodia has ambitious goals for tourism development in the coming months and years and we look forward to seeing increased tourism to Cambodia to allow for gradual economic growth, community development and cultural exchange in the Kingdom of Wonder.

Learn more about Trove’s Strategic Planning practice here.

Israel begins new uni-lateral travel deals with Greece and Cyprus

Israel has been leading the world in its aggressive COVID vaccination plan. 4 million of its 9 million residents have already received the first of the two Pfizer-BioNTech shots within a few short months. The country is hoping to have everyone over the age of 16 vaccinated by the end of March. Israel’s vaccination campaign has been an impressive benchmark for the rest for the world to follow, but Israel is also leading the world in innovative bilateral tourism deals. 

Israel has recently signed tourism deals with two of its Mediterranean neighbors, Greece and Cyprus. The deals allow vaccinated tourists of Greece and Cyprus to travel freely to Israel, and vice versa, without having to quarantine. The lack of a self-isolation period is massive and provides a glimmer of hope that a sense of normalcy is on the horizon. 

The countries will be working together to reopen their economies to tourism as their vaccination efforts are underway and cases of COVID-19 continue to decline. President Nicos Anastasiades is also hoping to work with Israel’s Ichilov hospital on a new COVID-19 treatment and said that Cyprus would participate in clinical trials. 

Israel is also said to be negotiating similar agreements with the United Kingdom, Estonia, Romania, Serbia, Georgia, and Seychelles. With historic peace deals made recently with the AUE, Bahrain, and Morocco in recent months, Israel could also look to negotiate similar tourism deals with these countries as well. 

The deals are a rare win-win scenario for all parties involved. Tourists who have been patient in wanting to travel over the past year can now do so safely and without the need to self-isolate. Countries who have experienced economic hardships as a result of the pandemic can aid each other’s tourism industries by satisfying all this pent-up demand. 

These bilateral tourism deals also highlight the confidence in the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine despite the emergence of new global variants. Early data in Israel has shown the Pfizer vaccine to be over 95% effective after both doses and experts are cautiously optimistic about Israel’s vaccine progress. US infectious disease expert Dr. Fauci said, “Israel has a remarkable diminution of cases associated with the efficacy of their vaccine.” The effectiveness of the vaccine has allowed Israel to start easing lockdown restrictions for those who have been fully immunized. 

The only concern that remains is how other countries can hope to keep pace with Israel in vaccinating their populations. Israel has been so far ahead of most countries that they may have to wait for others to catch up with their vaccine efforts. It seems that the only thing holding Israel’s complete return to normalcy back is the slow pace of other nations in administering the COVID-19 vaccine. 

As Israel, Cyprus, and Greece begin to implement these tourism agreements, it is critical to develop solid communications and messaging that underscores the safety in this tourist circuit. In addition, closely monitoring tourist sentiment online through sentiment analysis tools will allow for all three tourism authorities to track tourist feedback at a local, regional or national level as well as to develop new visitor standards. At Trove, our strategic planning and online marketing & social media offerings provide solid footing for any evolving destination looking for help implementing new policy or strategy. 

- For more news, contact the Trove Team

“The Multiplier Effect” in Travel and Tourism - WTTC

According to the World Travel & Tourism Council and the nonprofit Social Progress Imperative, reinstating international travel and tourism is a major driver in augmenting social progress in the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Travel and tourism is signaled to be a much more significant driver of community growth than other economic factors (infrastructure, energy, etc). To illustrate, between 2011-2019, Southeast Asia noted the fastest annual growth rate in travel and tourism GDP per capita at 6.7 % compared to the region's 3.7 % overall economic growth. This data additionally puts the spotlight on jobs within the travel and tourism sector. One job is typically created for approximately every 34 international visitors to a location. However, the research indicates that there is a more direct impact on regions in Africa, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East, where it may take as few as 11 to 24 international visitors to produce one job. 

The research demonstrates the tremendous economic impact to the global economy due to the severe cuts in international travel, largely worsened by the “multiple” associated with tourism job creation. Based on current economic forecasting, 174 million travel and tourism jobs were affected. However, the impact was not the same across the board, as travel and tourism is a sector which impacts across all socio-economic backgrounds, where employed people in the sector are composed of individuals across age, gender and ethnicity groups, with almost 54 percent of whom are women and up to 30 percent youths."

This “multiplier” effect is critical to how travel authorities, destination marketing organizations, tourism development consulting firms and tourism boards should approach tourism development, as there there is an even more pressing need to come together locally, regionally and internationally to assess the economic impact related to the pandemic, develop master plans, new marketing campaigns, and develop new initiatives to begin to recover. In addition, as small and medium sized enterprises - not only limited to the hospitality sector but beyond - were often the hardest hit economically, a key factor in tourism development globally must include direct involvement of business owners.

Home Rental Market Players Respond to COVID-19

Since the start of COVID-19, revenues from home rental companies have surpassed hotels in 27 global markets. Global restrictions on public gatherings and foreign tourists have impacted every major player in the travel industry, including vacation rentals as occupancy levels fell by almost half in mid-March to 33 percent by the end of June. However, there are definite movements forward in public-private partnerships to achieving results.

For example, a key actor in the rental market is Airbnb. Airbnb has over 7 million listings that spans across 220 countries. Forced to lay off a quarter of their employees in the spring, Airbnb’s valuation has fell from a high of $31 billion to $18 billion.

Airbnb’s co-founder and chief executive Brian Chesky is working towards serving all stakeholders in the community and adapting to changing forms of travel. France is an example of Airbnb’s longest standing partnership. Airbnb announced a new commitment to the French government as of February 8 to put home rentals at the forefront of France’s travel industry mitigation plan that caused financial burdens on small businesses and local governments. Airbnb will work to help hosts and guests follow social distance rules by launching a hotline for neighbors to report noise and will launch a campaign to promote year round, including off season, travel to French mountain and ski villages.

France is just one of the many commitments made with governments and destination marketing organizations (DMOs) to promote local travel. Airbnb announced their milestone to establish 100 partnerships with this goal in mind by Spring 2021. In December 2020, Visit Tampa Bay, WWF Mexico, and the Mexican Federation of Tourist Associations were added to their list of DMO partners—now at 80 partnerships across 25 countries.

In September 2020, Airbnb released City Portal, which provides governments and DMOs with tools, and sights into the Airbnb community. This includes industry first compliance tools to help governments create rental policies, dashboards for Airbnb data insights into market trends, resources such as the Airbnb Neighborhood Support hotline and Law Enforcement portal, and direct access to an Airbnb team member for one-on-one support. Kauai County in Hawaii became the most recent City Portal partner in January 2021 —bringing the number to 40 worldwide. 

These are great steps, and Trove is excited to see where this goes. At the core, many DMOs are looking to build a strategy for re-opening. Contact Trove for more information on our strategic planning work.

CNBC: Quarantine Free Travel Becoming Reality

According to CNBC’s article entitled “Quarantine-free travel from the U.S. to Europe shows the first, small signs of becoming reality”, many airlines are implementing new testing protocols to allow Americans to travel to Europe for Christmas. Companies such as Delta have implemented such programs, which will enable customers to be tested for COVID-19. This preflight testing program's unique feature is that it does not require a mandated quarantine when you arrive at your destination in Europe. CNBC’s article notes that Delta has begun this program with the destinations of Amsterdam and Rome.

Each destination either requires a COVID-19 Rapid/PCR test. However, in each destination, there are specific requirements for the number of tests and timelines required. Delta is initially trying to implement this program with other governments to increase travel by not requiring quarantining upon arrival. 

This program with Delta is open to anyone permitted to travel to the Netherlands or Italy for essential reasons. Although Americans have been barred from entering the European Union since March due to its high numbers of COVID-19 cases, travelers with an exemption would be allowed to enter the destinations within the EU. While vaccinations for COVID-19 are anticipated to boost travel, the airlines are not waiting for the vaccines. Delta, for example, is prudently designed protocols for testing which they hope will begin a travel boost. 

Creating many layers of protection such as testing, social distancing on flights, and wearing masks will lessen the risk of contracting COVID-19 while flying. Delta and many other airlines within the industry have increased their safety standards immensely.

Stay in the loop on more news via Trove’s Resource Hub.

Welcome to Trove!

We are excited to launch Trove, the first of its kind consulting and marketing agency focused on bringing the best of business, technology and marketing to destinations. Tourism is posed to come back stronger than ever, and we are excited to work with you to build out your plans and come back to market.

- The Trove Team