Welcome to Boostly Podcast Season 11 Episode 148. This is a recap of my Facebook live where I talked about why staycation bookings will still be the norm in 2021.
Here's the audio for this episode:
Here's the video for this episode:
Timestamp
00:00 Start
02:30 Staycations will still be the main driver of your bookings
06:50 Put this in your guests' shoes
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Transcript from the Episode
I want to share with you a story. And this is going to be the story is around my thinking. My prediction why staycations will still be the main driver of your bookings for the rest of 2021 maybe into 2022 as well. So as you may be aware, me and my family, Laura, Alfie, Charlie, Frankie, we like to travel and at the present moment in time we are in Spain. We've been here for a little while now. And we decided to take adventure home because we haven't been back to see family and friends in a long while. So we decided to fly and bear in mind Spain is in a number less country, we decided to fly back for two weeks. And because we're coming from an amber listed country into the UK, we had to isolate for 10 days, but you can pay the government a little bit extra money and you can test to release early. All in all, the test itself came to around about 600 pounds was very expensive. And we didn't even have to get on for Alfie, Charlie or Frankie which would have been even more expensive as you can imagine.
Now, upon leaving the country, we had to get an antigen test, which was about 40 euros, and then you had to fill in all the forms. Once we got into the country, we're instantly called and contacted by track and trace. And the fast just began there. So we decided to spend a little bit extra money during the test to release which meant that for six days, we had to be in Middlesbrough, which is great, got settled in Middlesbrough had our day two and day eight tests waiting for us upon arrival. Which no problem did our day 2, took it to the dropbox came back and isolated no problem got our results back on day three. Great. We use a company called randox health and as important randox health. I want you to go and do an @ search on Twitter. So typing at randox health and just go to see their mentions. And you'll see that what happened to me has happened to many other people. So day two have been in a country Spain announces that everybody going back into Spain needs to have a negative PCR test which meant even more money to spend but we'll get to in a second.
The problem is day three. randox Health tell you that your day Five which is your test early to release test will get sent out separately they have to do so because this is a robotic government, whatever this rule is noncentral day four happens. Very happy after England when in the quarterfinals of the euros. Watch the game fantastic. Really good. Watch it with the boys fantastic love the day four, no test arrive. No problem call randox health in a queue for an hour. I'll be with you tomorrow, sir, guaranteed a five no test arrive. called up Sorry, sir logistical problem is guaranteed to be with you on day six. day six, the queues get longer to three hours, nothing. day seven, nothing, we call up sorry, has been a massive issue. really apologize, we'll refund you. At this point. It's getting very frustrating because we have got over family see or friends group is moving around. Day eight has to release. Again, if anybody was watching my Instagrams, you know that at this point, it got very mundane and very annoying very quickly. We did our DNA test, we drop it to the Dropbox, no test came back. And this was just a recurring theme. And this is just our experience. This doesn't need to even mention the 1000s of other stories that are just on their Twitter now. And that's just randox health. randox Health is one of hundreds of recommended test companies that the government have put upon us. Now this is just our experience and bearing in mind, we had a place to go stay. We had booked accommodation with family to go stay with. the PCR test and the test that you have to do have to be done 24 hours before you arrive in the country. If anybody's taken a PCR test, you know that it can take up to 24 to 48 hours to get your results back. And you can't even get on the plane without them.
Put this in your guests' shoes
Now put this in your guest shoes now if you rely on people to fly into your country, and there are restrictions. I mean, granted, you may not be in the UK, maybe somewhere else in the world. But just right now Spain, there's been countries, Germany and France have said Listen, don't travel to Spain cases arising. It's putting so many people off from traveling country to country, doesn't matter who's driving or wherever. And we just had to play an experience. So you couple in all of these factors. Now you could go and book a holiday. You could go and book accommodation. You could go and book your car rental, you could book your insurance and all those things and it could literally get down to that your PCR test doesn't get back in time which means you cannot get on that flight on board and you lose 1000s.
So yes, there's going to be changes and yes the more that the world gets double vaccinated and rules and restrictions are lowered because everybody is vaccinated and this just becomes part of the new normal. Yes, this will change but right now from July, August September October, November December. If you are still insistent on relying on foreign travel into your country to rely on your guests please do look to change it staycation is going to be the continued boom between now and the end of the year. You need to take advantage of it. Please do look at Facebook groups please do look at amending your listings. Please do go look at amending your website look at your avatar if you're struggling with all of that Louise at rental tonic, she is fantastic at helping you uncover a new avatar or a new guest profile.
But this is the time to do so we had a shocking experience with the government and the test and we had an amazing experience with our family and our friends we eventually got to see. But my plea to everybody is that if you are still relying on foreign travel coming into your country for your guests to look to change, whether it be business or keyworkers people travelling looking for work etc. They are there, the guests are there the potential is there, everybody in the world has got a story of how they pivoted and changes. So please do listen, please do take heed. And hopefully, this message reaches you in time.
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