Now as never before travel influencers are feeling the strain. Pre-planned trips get cancelled and agreed partnerships and commissions placed on hold. They’re working on blog posts from trips already taken and daydreaming about the future without coronavirus.
Couple of our travel influencers from all over the world have been commenting on how the spread of COVID-19 has already affected their work.
"I have almost all my collabs cancelled due to uncertainty with the virus", said Olka @olka_gamolka, a Chicago-based travel blogger whose Instagram account has over 49,000 followers. "I am already losing all income from Instagram", she told us.
Olka, like many others, said a lot of her friends get their trips cancelled and postponed as well.
Olka is currently in Hawaii and told us she's "not planning anything after Hawaii".
Entrepreneur and travel blogger Vera Mao, who has more than 30k followers under the handle @kisses.vera also shared with us: “I have stopped travelling completely due to uncertainty in the pandemic situation and also travel restrictions. Work that doesn't require traveling remains the same. But fewer jobs now across the board”.
Vesn Angelevski @serendipity.family.travel, who travels the world with her family, said she's already canceled her full time travel adventure in June.
One by one, travel plans and dreams were canceled.
"We were directly affected as we meant to start our full time travel adventure in a few months, starting in Barcelona. Yes we have lost a lot of money, but the memories we hoped to create is the thing that hurts more. With the onset of the Coronavirus, our freedom has been taken from us. A freedom we might never have again", said Vesn.
“Our heart aches for our world. We have become united as we all try to understand this world pandemic. Through social media, we speak with other travellers, some currently in isolation, in Spain, Italy and France. We hope this pandemic settles, a cure or a vaccine to be found. To be able to have our freedom as travellers once again”, she added. And we hope very much too.
What Can Travel Bloggers Do Now?
There is something that travel bloggers can do during this challenging times.
1. Use this time to connect with your audience on social in a really personable way. Create polls/quizzes/live-streams and etc. Also, try to connect with your audiences through creative ways such as sending postcards to those who wanted to get a feeling of armchair travel.
2. See what content you can create from home such as podcasting, tips, video editing, or your website redesign. Focusing on content that entertains your followers, for instance, share funny travel stories.
3. It's a great time to re-focus and create an action plan or strategy to grow your travel blogs in the next few months.
Try to be active during this period, so that once travel resumes, your audience still be with you.
Stay strong, that day we can all travel again will come very soon!
And stay tuned with Persollo!