Sat night, early April by the beginning of the year(s) of Covid19 with me stirring a kinda chicken korma (I like saucy) seems as good a place as any for thoughts on future of online travel publishing. A thread. But I’ll start with a dinner pic. Also, I hope I’m wrong on all this.

I know, it seems trivial to tweet oh my online business is dead in the water when tens of thousands are dying left right and centre, I get that, but, I firmly believe travel matters. Not so much cause it (used to) put my kids through school, or paid for a long lease, but ...

Because I believe travel remains an amazing opportunity for cross cultural learning and exchange and obviously enables many local families financial opportunities they otherwise may not have + offers insight to travellers they’d otherwise not get.

Yeah I’m not corporate. I’m a reformed backpacker with an arts degree. I made a living through this accidentally, believe me. My business knowledge is ahhh limited, ask my accountant. I failed accounting 1 at UTS three times. No joke.

Enough about me, This will be Travelfish’s 16th year. Last year was bad enough (for a whole buncha reasons) but this year, omfg.

Some of our affiliate partners (one of the ways we made money) are either bust, about to be, or in denial. Thankfully we got out of ads a few years ago, but from what other travel site owners have told me, that’s a trainwreck absolut. Think Train to Busan with 10x zombies

So where to from now? My humble prognosis is first needs to be a widely adopted vaccine. Let’s say, conservatively, 12-18 months for that worldwide. Then they’ll need to be something along lines of Yellow Fever vaccinations, where you’ll need to prove your shot to get on a plane.

Then local infrastructure - hotels, transport, domestic flights etc will need to get back up to speed. Realistically none of this can happen from a recreational travel POV till previous step sorted. Ok so that pushes it to 2 years.

Once all above sorted, travel will be led by indies & business travellers. Mass tourism at least 3+ years. Bear in mind the financial hardship over the economic collapse over the next couple of years. Who will have the loose change to hit the road? Few. Back to late 60s/early 70s

So in the intervening period, what are travel publishers to do? Many sadly will vanish. Bankrupt. If your entire business model was ads and hotel commissions, unless you have rather large pockets, you’re toast. Many old school publishers have already suspended all research.

How long can you hold your breath? This is going to be an absolute bloodbath.

So what is a publisher to do? Cut costs obviously, and bed down for the long sleep. Look at how to engage with your readers, who really want to travel, but can’t. Newsletters (like CouchFish https://couchfish.substack.com/  ) or videos or ebooks or podcasts or whatever.

It’s not that people don’t want to travel. It’s that they can’t. Just because you’re stuck on the couch doesn’t mean you can’t travel! Feed that need. There are a bunch of ways to do it.

At the other end of the stick, local operators, guides, guesthouses, drivers and so on. Look after them. Put your couched travellers in touch direct. Screw the middle commissions. “We know you used Ketut in Bali as a driver for a week and loved it, click here to send him $50”

Encourage people to postpone rather than cancel. Put them in touch direct with properties. While you build a relationship with them, let them build a relationship direct with each other. Despite our dearth of decent leaders, people want to step up and help. Help them do that.

Like I said, I’m not a businessperson! This is such a gruesome period and for every ghastly story about people dying, there’s a thousand others of people who’ve lost their jobs and need help. Big brands (and small, us included) should be stepping into this space.

So, in summary, travel publishing, imo, is screwed for the next few years, but that doesn’t mean there’s not the opportunity to step in and do some good.

So get to work.