Our world has been turned upside down by the Corona virus and the COVID-19 outbreak. It calls for innovation and smart solutions as we brace ourselves for the economic and social impact of the outbreak and the much needed social isolation.

I wanted to reach out to destinations and tourism businesses to share some of the practical ways in which we can help you get through this crisis and build a more resilient and future-fit business.

How can Destinate help you?

Some of you only know me as a strategist and previous CEO of Cape Town Tourism, but I am also an entrepreneur and a business owner navigating this crisis.

With 40 years combined experience in tourism, business and crisis management, the Destinate team has helped steer destinations and tourism organisations through challenging times. In recent years we’ve worked with a number of multinational companies on strategic and crisis communication, helping them navigate some challenging situations.

We sat down and thought long and hard about what the industry needs now and how we could help businesses be more resilient now and successful in the long run.

There are no quick fixes and one thing is clear, our industry will be changed forever by COVID-19. We will not return to a state of normal. Normal no longer exists and won’t be enough to safeguard us in the short term or help us recover fast enough when this crisis finally abates. So what do we do?

You are most likely caught up in panic wondering how your brand will survive this crisis. With Level 1 Lockdown introduced a few weeks ago, it is the perfect time to create and strengthen the bonds your customers have with your brand. Now is the time to show your customers how you are riding out this storm and innovating to continue offering incredible experiences. They must see evidence of you being ready to welcome them with their safety and enjoyment guaranteed. 

It is much harder to reach new customers than keep current customers. If you are not proactively engaging your customers, you will be forgotten by the time COVID-19 is under control.

We would like to help you rise to this challenge with great tenacity and come out stronger on the other side.

So here are a few things we can help you with right now:

1. Develop a resilience plan that will help you survive the next few months
2. Develop a communications and social media plan that will keep your customers informed and hooked into your brand
3. Brainstorm and test innovative new ways of doing business in the short and longer term
4. Develop your recovery plan now so that you are ready and able to hit the ground running when the crisis abates (and it will!)
5. Help you assess your brand’s online presence and customer journey to make sure it is fresh, user-friendly and effective not just for the weeks to come, but for the future
6. Support you with social media management and content creation

We are all in this together and our customers want to hear how we are doing and what we are doing to get through this crisis. Let’s show them our resolve and what they can look forward to from us in the near future. We will beat COVID-19 of that I am certain.

Special rates for tough times

We know your cash flow is under pressure and have extended our special rates till the end of 2020.

We’ve cut our rates with 20% across all services including my strategic services, content development and social media management.

I look forward to hearing from you and working with you and the tourism industry at large to build a more resilient and future fit industry, ready to overcome any challenge.

Read my blogpost titled A Time to Reveal our True Character and Resolve for more thoughts on COVID-19. 

Mariette

xxx

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