Asia specialist Wendy Wu Tours has revealed how it had to cut its workforce in the UK, Australia and New Zealand from 180 to 36 as the pandemic forced the axing of its tours in the Far East.
The escorted tours specialist was one of the first operators to be affected as Covid-19 emerged in China in late 2019 and early 2020.
It switched its focus to offer holidays in Scotland and elsewhere in Europe and hopes to resume operations this year in its traditional destinations such as Japan and China, said chief executive Glen Mintrim.
He told a Travel Weekly webcast that the operator is now “lean” after it reduced the headcount from 180 to just 36 in its source markets of Australia, New Zealand and the UK.
“Those 36 people have been phenomenal. I’m so proud of the team; they have been so versatile their roles; we’ve skilled them up,” he said.
“People that would specialise in certain areas of marketing have diversified; in retail, we’ve merged reservations and operations together; the product team have become more global; we’ve globalised finance.
“We have been able to be very effective.”
The staff now work with a hybrid format, using Zoom calls to keep colleagues in touch with each other.
Mintrim said most customers stuck with the operator despite having to move their planned holidays – some of them two or three times – since the pandemic began.
It hoped about 70% of customers affected by cancellations would rearrange their holidays and managed to achieve a figure of 73%, he added.
As well as adapting to Zoom for its workforce, it has been holding online events for clients to showcase its new tours.
The first one was held to promote its new Scotland itineraries, which were introduced as a domestic option when lockdown severely restricted overseas travel.
The format proved popular and has been expanded to cover other destinations and highlight what’s special about the tours.
Now Mintrim is seeing confidence return and customers are keen to book after two years of travel restrictions.
“I said to the team ‘don’t be worried about doing tours that are 20 days and asking for £10,000 from the customer’; they want it,” he said.
“A lot of them have got four trips booked.
“These customers want these adventures, and they want to get away.
“They earned their right to have an adventure.”
In addition to Covid health protocols on tours, the operator will introduce a VIP service for clients, costing £199, to take away the stress of organising lateral flow tests and filling in Passenger Locator Forms.
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