I believe we give credit to the Yankees catcher Yogi Berra who said, “It ain’t over until it is over.” An off-shoot of this sometimes refers to an over-weight soprano singing the lyrics to God Bless America.

According to the latest news reports, summer is now over since Labor Day has come and gone. And although many people are beginning to act like Covid-19 is over, even without an advanced medical degree I can assure you that it isn’t.  But there is something more important than both of these examples that is not over yet. YOU. Read the rest of this entry »

For the past nine months travel professionals have realized, perhaps more than anybody, that it was not the time to ply their trade. “Hunkering down” vs “Leaving town” became the norm.

Fast forward 280 days and these very same professionals are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The question now involves “how” to initiate interest again without appearing obnoxious, pushy, too edgy, or manipulative. Enter the audio podcast. Read the rest of this entry »

The travel industry needs to consider a radical rehaul of just about everything we do that involves travel advisors. And, when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING.

Since March, I’ve been holding lots of private talks with advisors and industry executives about how this pandemic is impacting their businesses. Most importantly, we’ve been discussing what’s necessary to help the entire industry recover.

Almost everyone has said these bleak days are an opportune time to open EVERYTHING for discussion. Read the rest of this entry »

My nephew and his girlfriend came to visit us this weekend from Brattleboro, VT. Andrew is my sister Mimi’s son, and we were looking forward to meeting his new friend.

The Marchev family consists of a large group of fun-loving people who spend a major portion of their time together laughing and kidding each other mercilessly. I am very pleased to report that Sarah impressed us all and proved to be capable of going toe to toe with the best of us.

But that is not the theme of today’s message. Andrew and Saran met online. Yes. Through a dating App. Read the rest of this entry »

Stick with me on this. It will make sense…I promise.

One day a farmer’s donkey fell into an abandoned well. The animal brayed for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old and the well needed to be covered up anyway; so it just wasn’t worth it to him to try to retrieve the donkey. Read the rest of this entry »

American Cruise Lines announced that American Jazz has passed Sea Trials. Following the successful trials, American accepted delivery of the riverboat from Chesapeake Shipbuilding in Salisbury, MD. The 190-passenger American Jazz is the latest in American’s series of five new modern riverboats and will be added to the company’s fleet on the Mississippi River. American’s building plans have continued at full strength despite this year’s pause in cruising. Read the rest of this entry »

As if Covid cases, consistently changing rules of entry, and nervous customers weren’t enough to deal with… last week, travel advisors were hit by another insidious disease: scammers at the resorts.

“I got lucky; I had a guardian angel looking out for me,” says travel advisor Loulu Lima, who last week discovered, just in time, that her booking of 22 adults and kids, for a total of 27 room nights, at the Hard Rock Punta Cana for a man named Darling Koch (you can’t make this stuff up) was just one big con.

Cathy Sanchez was not so lucky. Her scammer, who called himself Robert Nunez, booked five rooms at Hard Rock earlier this month — and even sent her a video of himself enjoying his vacation. Then he disputed the credit card charge, claiming it was unauthorized.

While they are seasoned travel advisors with a careful process for detecting scammers, both Lima and Sanchez were fooled Read the rest of this entry »

Today is Friday and I am going to take a little poetic license and do something I have never done in my column.

First of all, I titled my words today TGIF. This is something I never do since my favorite four-letter reminder is TGIT. This stands for Thank Goodness Its Today.

Waiting to celebrate a single day of the week is a game for fools. There, I said it.

The word Friday is just another way to identify one of seven precious time segments we have in each of our fleeting lives. Time waits for nobody and “today” is the day we have been waiting for. Let’s move on. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Two weeks ago, my Agent’s Perspectives article took a look at Castles and Cathedrals in the Cotswolds. This week, the focus sharpens on some of the Castles, cathedrals, and some 11th century churches which are like a slow but riveting walk through centuries of English history.

Some of them double up as short pre-or-post cruise extensions sailing in/out of Dover, while others come together as components for a travel-less, see-more tour that will appeal to your garden-loving clients. Other ingredients can be blended together for an English cathedrals-based tour perhaps with Sunday morning worship in Canterbury Cathedral?

Read the rest of this entry »

Here is a quote from a book I read titled Do It! Marketing by David Newman.

“When it comes to responding to leads, the mantra is ‘Now Or Never’. Leads won’t wait. They are looking for a solution NOW.”

Regardless of the current condition of your business, leads are the key focal point when it comes to growing your business. Without leads, you have no direction Read the rest of this entry »

Rwanda recently became one of the few countries in the world that has opened its doors to the abandoned American traveler.

As of Aug. 1, Rwanda is accepting visitors on commercial flights – as long as they have a certificate showing they tested negative for COVID-19 in a SARS-CoV 2 Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) test that has been administered within the previous five days.

In addition to that, Rwanda recently received the global safety and hygiene stamp from the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), certifying that it has successfully adopted the global standardized health and hygiene protocols of the WTTC for dealing with COVID19. The protocols have been formulated based on the experience of WTTC members as well as on guidelines established by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Read the rest of this entry »

Has this ever happened to you? I don’t consider myself an impulse buyer but, I once purchased a vacuum cleaner from a TV infomercial at 3:30 am.

Usually asleep at that time of night, I was watching television when something caught my attention. Before I knew it, I was the proud owner of a vacuum cleaner known as The Stick Shark. This thing sucks up screws and bolts like nothing you have ever seen. Read the rest of this entry »

According to The Washington Post, the University of Arizona detected a coronavirus outbreak in one of its dorms, after everyone in the dorm had passed antigen tests before moving in. They found two infectious students that had previously tested Negative. All that needed to be done was monitoring the wastewater in each dorm for infectious feces.

It ends up that feces “shed” not only onto your hands where they can be transported to your face (hence the emphasis on washing your hands), but also into the wastewater that come from flushing toilets. Testing samples of wastewater coming from the sewage lines connecting cabins on ships can identify groups of cabins that have infectious guests or crew. Then, these persons can be given individual COVID-19 tests Read the rest of this entry »

What new skill sets are you working to acquire these days? With all the pivot-preaching prevalent, I wonder who is dreaming big and who is doing big? Inspire me, please!

Skills don’t come in pill form, but can you imagine if they did? The upside would be the instant, one-step mastery of a new skill set. The downside would be the instant, one-step mastery of a new skill set.

If we took a magic pill to achieve it, how would we value it? The only heavy-lifting needed is a glass of water to wash it down. I don’t see any real sense of accomplishment in such a trivial task – nor any personal, professional, or spiritual growth happening. Read the rest of this entry »

Haven’t all of us, at one point, had to write that elementary school essay: What did you do on summer vacation? Well, for many travel advisors, summer 2020 has been more like an extension of everyone’s “COVID sabbatical” – anything but a vacation.

Most agents have scrambled to keep their businesses afloat, cutting expenses, trying to scrounge up extra cash, and deal with an incessant series of cancellations and re-bookings. They’ve also spent the last six months contacting clients to check in on them and remind them that their trusted Travel Advisor is there when they want to travel again. Read the rest of this entry »

Rejection is an interesting topic. Many folks pursuing a career in sales (which includes everybody) feel that they must acquire a thin skin to withstand the many times they will soon be “rejected.” I would like to dispel this “myth” and put a different spin on it. Here me out.

Picture yourself in New York City on a Saturday morning. The sun is shining, and it is a perfect 72 degrees. Life is grand. You are feeling good. And you have a full day to “enjoy” before meeting a friend for a mid-afternoon cocktail at the Plaza Hotel.

You spot a woman on the corner with four suitcases and three small children tugging at her skirt. She’s trying to get her entourage to cross the street as soon as the light turns green. Being of sound mind and strong body, and in no particular hurry, you approach the woman and politely ask if you can be of assistance. Read the rest of this entry »