Covid-19 has impacted many businesses within the travel sector. Trails & Travels, which offers walking and cycling tours in South Africa, is one such organisation.
Tour operator Piet Krynauw shed light on how they are coping.
He said: “We have spent the past decade taking great pride in creating a business that stands for quality walking and cycling holidays. The passion of our team and hospitality partners have been vital to our growth and success. No one could ever have imagined that a global pandemic would bring the business to a complete standstill.
“Our last booking was in the middle of March 2020. We have refunded all deposits and payments for 2020 and 2021 international bookings. These customers have spent a long time planning and dreaming about their adventures, no longer available. Our booking office remained available during the lockdown but the focus shifted to developing new packages and to improve our systems and products.”
Caption: Hermanus walking tour with Trails & Travels.
Picture: Marion Swailes
On their most popular walking tours, Krynauw revealed: “Most of our tours are 4 days/3 nights. Some packages combine different areas and are up to 14 days. Seventy percent of our tours are in the Western Cape and the balance in the Drakensberg, the Kruger area in Mpumalanga and in the Eastern Cape. The Western Cape tours cover the Cape Winelands, Cape Town, the West Coast, Hermanus, Kogelberg, the Southernmost area, the Overberg, the Cederberg and the Garden Route. The tours in and around Cape Town are the more popular ones.”
With the lockdown levels easing, the tourism sector is slowly coming back to life.
Krynauw confirmed: “We are now in a phase of some tourism facilities re-opening and confidence re-building. The safety of our customers and partners is always our primary consideration, so we are negotiating the new landscape carefully. Many of our potential customers could be yearning for the outdoors and missing their favourite activities but the regulations and risks are still very restrictive in respect of restaurants and travel.”
He added: “Sadly, we foresee very limited business for this year. The scenario that we are planning for is that the first phase of recovery will be domestic with interprovincial travel no later than 1 September 2020. On this basis marketing activity will be resumed and directed at the South African market. We are hoping for some success with our tours in rural areas, over the next year.”
He pointed out that the bulk of the business remains dependent on international flights into the country.
He explained: “Our high season runs from September to March and represents 75 percent of our business. The nature of international inbound bookings is such that there is a long lead time between booking and travel. Even if inbound flights are allowed by Sep/Oct 2020 we anticipate that it will be too late for the coming high season.
"Our main target market is the 55-plus age group and their preference could be to delay leisure trips based on the unprecedented global position. The Covid-19 trends are not predictable, with a high risk of resurgence of the virus before the availability of a vaccine. With these uncertainties it is very difficult to plan. We do not foresee meaningful international bookings before the Spring and Summer of 2021.”
“In order to facilitate a recovery of business we have decided to make future adventures easier to plan by letting customers book for 2021 with no deposit due until 30 November 2020. They will also have the option to amend their dates up to five weeks before departure. In cases where we can negotiate special rates from our accommodation partners it will be passed on to our customers.”
For more information, visit: www.trailsandtravel.co.za