6th May 2020 By Shannon Williams | shannon@tourismticker.com | @tourismticker
The Ticker’s Lowdown on the Lockdown brings you a regular take from a tourism professional exploring new ways of working, sharing what life now looks like for them and just how much Covid-19 has changed what they do.
Jenna Snelgrove
Jenna Snelgrove, sales and marketing director at Tranzit Group, on operating in a reactive state as the Covid-19 crisis developed at pace, and turning the corner to focus on forward planning, opportunities and innovation.
How have the last few weeks been for you? What was business like heading into lockdown?
The week leading into lockdown, felt like a year with Covid-19 striking at such pace. Our brains were working overtime as we tried to make sense of everything and at that time, we were looking overseas for any insight into the impact this pandemic could have for New Zealand and on our different businesses. The impact on our tour business began a few weeks before lockdown with cancellations dribbling through, then it literally stopped overnight like so many other tourism businesses. Our transport services continued to operate through alert level 4 as they were classified as an essential service. This brought its own challenges, but we’re so grateful to have been able to continue some work through this period and to support other essential service workers by getting them safely to and from work.
And how have you been settling into lockdown life?
Settling into home for 4 weeks was slightly surreal. It’s been an adjustment to our daily routines and working remotely while home-schooling has brought new challenges. But all in all, I consider my family to be very lucky to be going through this experience in our home in our little paradise, which is Greytown, Wairarapa.
What are the priorities that you are focusing on right now?
The last few weeks we’ve been in a reactive state, plans changing day-by-day if not hour-by-hour – much of the time we were planning for the unknown. We’ve turned a corner and now our focus is forward planning, looking for new opportunities, innovating our current product offering and working closely with industry stakeholders particularly in the tourism sector. There is a still a degree of uncertainty about the future, but within our business there is certainly a sense that we carry on best we can and beat this.
How are you communicating with your team? Do you have regular conference calls, video chats?
Zoom. Zoom. Zoom
This is our go-to for regular meetings at both a team and company level. It’s helped us to replace the team dynamic we’d normally have in the office. It will be interesting to see how businesses adapt to these new ways of interacting and working remotely after lockdown. It’s interesting that terms like ‘bubble’, ‘flattening the curve’ and ‘physical distancing’ have all become part of our normal daily discussions.
And how are you keeping up morale through this difficult time?
For our teams who are frontline and not able to work from home, we regularly check-in by phone as they are located right across the country. We’ve maintained a transparent and honest approach, communicating often, although because official information changed so quickly this presented its own challenges ensuring the correct information was shared in a timely manner. During this time, we’ve tried to focus on the positives and celebrate our successes – no matter how small. For those of our team working from home or unable to come to work, we’ve been doing health and wellbeing checks, which has been a good way to stay connected.
Can you tell us a bit about your bubble? What do you get up to in order to keep spirits up?
My bubble comprises my partner, Ivan, and our two kids, our two dogs and a cat. We’ve embraced the lockdown as a family with weekly ludo challenges, daily bike rides, burger nights, date nights, posting letters and camping in the lounge on weekends.
Have you got any personal goals that you are hoping to achieve while in lockdown?
During the lockdown, I was due to fly to Bali for a once-in-a-lifetime yoga retreat with my cousin. Obviously this was cancelled, so instead, I’ve been doing morning yoga sessions in the lounge following a 30-day plan on YouTube … but it is not quite the same experience.
What will business look like for you once restrictions lift? What are your plans for recovery?
Our business, like many others in the industry, is facing uncertainty around what tourism will look like. There are some exciting opportunities for parts of our business focused on the domestic market, but the parts of our businesses heavily reliant on international tourism, have a more challenging time ahead refocusing and/or reinventing themselves to ensure their sustainability.
Have you got any messages of support for the industry that you would like to share?
No doubt our industry has been hit hard by this crisis, but tourism will return and we all have a role to play in making sure it does. We also know that crises can bring with them innovation. Collaborations will become even more important, reach out, support one another and share your learnings.
