April 2020 Newsletter
It has been a year since we sent one of these out. This is what is inside…
- What’s New With ABHT
- Let’s Get Real
- Event Calendar
- New Sample Itineraries
- Recent Blog Posts
- Virtual Travel Destinations
WHAT’S NEW WITH ABHT
Like we said before, it has been a year since we sent out a newsletter like this. We haven’t forgotten about you! It just takes time to sit down and compose a newsletter, gather photos and links to share with you.
You might remember that last year our CEO had a family emergency early in the year. This lead her to move back home to Vegas to take care of her mom. That left Tia and Monica to run the office in Lynnwood basically by themselves. We also had to take over trips that Andrea could no longer handle. Thankfully, we had some amazing interns to help us out and one of them recently became a new member of our team! Last year, we also lost an amazing agent (Justin) as he had to find another job to support his family. He still loves travel and it is not the last we will see of him.
This year, we were on a good path to getting Andrea back into the fold and she was making regular trips to WA state every 4-6 weeks. She helped us with our events and leading our team forward. She was in WA state when the COVID-19 outbreak happened. She did make it back to Vegas to continue to care for her mom before everything was locked down but she is now self-quarantining herself for 14-days before she see her mom. Last week, she had to admit herself into the hospital because she was having problems breathing. She was there for 4 days and had a COVID-19 test but it is taking 10+ days for test results to come back. Officially, she was diagnosed with pneumonia and had to go home and continue to quarantine because the hospital needs the beds for people who were in more critical condition than she was in.
Read about some of Andrea’s ordeal on Facebook and her warning message for all.
Overall, this pandemic has been a terrible blow to our entire industry and none of us could predict the magnitude of it. We were lucky all considered. We have never been hugely reliant on cruises so we didn’t have anyone cruising at the time of the outbreak. We also had very few clients traveling at the time. We were also on the verge of confirming several Italy trips just as the outbreak in Italy happened. We have kept busy, in the beginning, as we fielded a lot of questions from our clients who wanted to know all their options about cancelling or postponing. We had one client cancel their cruise for this summer due to their immune compromised status. Then, it was quiet. During this quiet time, we are working on things we normally don’t have time for like adding new blog posts, updating our website, sending this newsletter, helping one of our agents build her new website, etc. We now have another wave of busy time as people’s summer trips are now being threatened.
Now, back to our regular programming. Here are just a few trips that we have been working on over the past year…
- Honeymoon in the UK
- Cousin Reunion on Alaska Cruise
- Friends Trip to Australia and Cook Islands
- Anniversary Trip to Ireland
- Disney Cruise to Bahamas
- Mother/Daughter Trip to Japan
- 25th Anniversary to Mexico
- Heart of Europe Guided Tour (x3)
- Viking River Cruise in Ukraine
- Couples Vacation to Maui
- Family Trip to Europe to Visit Au Pairs
- Mother/Son Trip to Europe
- Anniversary Trip to Maui
Don’t hesitate to call us to have us help you with your next vacation! You can contact us by phone or email.
LET’S GET REAL
Now, it isn’t usually our place to tell you how we earn money. It seems a bit tacky. However, we like to be transparent, open and honest with our clients and we think they appreciate that about us. What most people don’t realize is that we work almost 100% on commission which is paid from the cruise lines, hotels and suppliers AFTER our clients travel. It depends on the type of trip our clients take, but some cruises are planned 18-24 months in advance.
This is part of the reason why we charge a consultation fee for our services. It helps provide a small income until the commission from the traveled trip is paid. It is also the reason why we charge cancellation fees as well but, they in no way come close to recovering the lost commission or the time we have spent planning and cancelling your trip. Some people think that it is a quick and easy process to cancel or re-book a trip. It is not. It takes many hours to research the options for each component of a client’s trip and then those options change almost daily so we need to keep on top of many airlines, suppliers, hotels and destination travel ban advisories. Our goal is always to give our clients the best outcome possible as we are your travel advocate!
Like many local businesses, we still have expenses that need to be paid like office rent, phones, taxes, licensing and more. Did you know that we pay for a WA state license, Seller of Travel license, insurance license, City of Lynnwood license just to name a few? We are trying to apply for government relief but these programs take time to get put in place and the money to be distributed. We are trying to survive like many other businesses hurt by this pandemic.
We know this isn’t the time to be planning trips. At least not for travel within the next few months but we are ready to plan your trip for the end of this year and into 2021. Cruises are easier to plan farther ahead but we can also process your consultation fee now and plan your custom trip when you (or your destination) are ready. If you are really determined to book travel on your own, please see our “Book Your Trip!” where you will access our affiliate links and we may receive a small payment for those services.
We are here for you regardless of when you want to travel next. We will persevere. We will become stronger in the end. Please continue to sing our praises and how we helped you in the past. A review on Yelp is always appreciated. We very much appreciate each and every one of you!
EVENT CALENDAR
We have been hosting free, fun & informative destination themed travel nights for the past year. Most of them are at our office in Lynnwood but we are also experimenting with other locations as well. We have some nibbles, wine and bubbly water while we share some information about specific destinations. We would love for you to join us or share these events with someone who you think would be interested in attending. Please RSVP and bring a friend! All of these events can be found on the Event Calendar on our website too.
Of course, all events right now are postponed. We had a Discover Tahiti event in April that we had to cancel for now. We also had low turnout for our Discover Greece event so that may show back up later this year. Stay tuned for when we can add these events back to the calendar.
- Viking Cruise Night – Sept 24th
All Secret Travel Society events have been put on hold until Andrea can come back to WA State to help plan these events.
Let us know if there is a destination or you are interested in learning more about!
NEW SAMPLE ITINERARIES
We are working on rebuilding our website as the platform we are currently using is no longer being supported. In the meantime, we wanted to highlight some recent additions to our website that you can enjoy for now.
Check out this 7-night sample trip to Maui that we posted as well as a 7- or 14-night itinerary to Greece.
We also added a page with our Essential Travel Links that we share with all our clients but it is also a super useful list for anyone about to travel.
RECENT BLOG POSTS
We have some new blog posts and thought we should share them with you! In order to save and share our newsletters more efficiently, we started adding them to our blog. We even have a guest blogger who has provided some more fun content for us.
We know these are a bit old now but you can use them to help inspire you to travel when we can again.
- Is Mexico Safe for Travel (Mar 2019)
- This is Why You Need to Use Vacation Days and Travel (Apr 2019, Guest Blogger)
- 4 UK Adventures for Families (Jul 2019, Guest Blogger)
- What’s the Difference Between Cabo, Puerto Vallarta and Cancun? (Aug 2019)
- 5 Countries Perfect for Your Honeymoon (Aug 2019, Guest Blogger)
- Travel Tips for Japan (Aug 2019)
- 6 Travel Tips You Need to Succeed on Your First Adventure (Oct 2019, Guest Blogger)
- Are You Prepared for Domestic Travel in 2020? (Oct 2019)
- A Couples Guide to Planning an Adventure Trip (Dec 2019)
- Top USA Travel Destinations (Mar 2020)
Do you have an idea for a blog post or want to contribute? Let us know!
VIRTUAL TRAVEL DESTINATIONS
We will be posting all of these virtual travel destinations to our Facebook Page on a daily basis. However, you don’t need to wait to explore all these ideas of how to pass the time and dream about travel during this pandemic. Make sure to keep us in mind when you are ready and safe to travel again!
- Virtual Travel Destinations (Mar 2020)
