genie in a bottle

So what does a travel advisor do when the entire world stays in place? 

Right?!? Such a good question. Well the first thing I did was to slow down after spending close to two months undoing a year's worth of travel for my clients. If you are a fan of math then these numbers may impress you...100% of all of my client travel is cancelled for the year 2020.  To be clear, given the state of the world I approve of this approach, however the amount of work involved in the "undoing" of custom travels is...well....significant.  Initiating the cancellation, speaking with suppliers to ascertain their cancellation and refund policies (which in some cases can change daily ...hello airlines!!!!), confirming when the clients may expect their refunds or travel vouchers, monitoring if that has happened, tracking and monitoring all correspondence with both supplier and client, ...honestly the scope of work goes on and on.  What clients certainly know - that others may not - is that all of this work has been done pro-bono.  Yes, that's right folks, the tens of hours that I was on the phone with the airlines cancelling and then managing the refund or credit is the tens of hours that my clients were free to spend doing things they enjoyed.  Insert note of caution here: If clients choose to cancel travel plans of their own accord; the services for that cancellation are fee based however in this case we are in a global pandemic and could I expect my clients to remunerate me for work when they are suffering with the frustration and disappointment about the cancellation itself.  Exactly.   Life happens and I believe we have to accept the serendipitous events  - whether good or bad - and be graceful in our acceptance.   My graceful acceptance is sometimes lacking when I awake at 2:00 AM worried that I may have overlooked a car rental or forgotten to save an email that I know is critical to a client's cancellation file.  However, that state also occurs when clients are travelling too...did they make their connecting flight? is the hotel room all that they hoped for? do they like the excursion I booked for  today?    For me, managing people's dreams and expectations - whether doing or undoing - sometimes feels a wee bit like the Genie in Walt Disney's Aladdin...now if I could only learn to shape-shift, and transcend space and time ...:-)