We all can agree that this is will be a rough one for everybody, but to financially abuse your clients just because you can says a lot about your business and about your quality as a person.

I would use harsher words but I’m trying to be diplomat and I don’t know if I will manage to do that by the end of this article.

So, every player from the tourism industry was greatly hit by the Corona virus crisis, but Romania seems to be a market full of “special needs entrepreneurs”.

Tourism agencies

Reprogramming a vacations seems to be a well intended feature for your clients. By making such a move you will look empathetic with the needs of your clients. But some of the Romanian tour-operators felt the need to charge a fee of EUR 50 for every vacation package that must issue a value voucher.

So, even if your vacation cost EUR 300 or EUR 1500 you will have to pay this fee. You can say, “Ok, that’s business!”, and I would agree with you if the agencies started this process during the COVID-19 epidemic or when Romania was still under Emergency State.

But now, for most of those packages the free change of dates or other details expired, the state of emergency is almost gone, and the tourists have only two choices: to go a vacation risking to come back sick and be quarantined (sick or not, depending of the country chosen for holiday) of paying extra for a vacation.

An extra-charge for a customer that needs understanding regarding his only time that he truly is relaxing is a sure move to lose that customer. And there are not that many fishes in the sea, as you like to think.

These tourism agencies are the same ones that for the past few weeks have publicly cried that no one from the Government is helping them with financial or fiscal aid to surpass the COVID-19 crisis, while they are abusing the customers.

When it comes to returning the money for the touristic packages, I’ve seen all sorts of managers complaining that they already paid the hoteliers and the airline companies. The truth is that some of those companies chose not to make those payments of paid debts from last years with the client’s money.

This short term thinking is one more nail in the offline tourism businesses that are already losing ground to online platforms.

Hoteliers

You have a customer that comes to your hotel every year and spends one or two weeks with his family and friends. You can say about that customer that has a high LTV for you, so you have to do everything to keep it. But no! This is not the case for some Romanian hoteliers for which retention rate has no value.

Example: For the past 6-8 years a customer comes every year with his family to you hotel. Every summer. For two weeks. In the last couple of years he brought another family for the same period. This year, he did the same thing as in the previous years.

You have an offer: for every 6 days spent in your hotel he is rewarded an extra day. So he bought 12 days to win 2 extra days. You take his money. But then the COVID-19 epidemic comes. Your tourists find themselves in the impossibility to travel because of the restrictions in your country. So how are you reward you faithful clients?

You choose to tell them that if they want to reprogram from June to August their holiday they have to pay the August tariffs and also you take them the extra days. The client could take back his money, but doesn’t want so he pays extra. Now, how do you think this client will react next year? Will he be your customer? The answer is NO!

So, at a LTV of EUR 12,000, CLTV is at least EUR 3,600. OK, being a big hotels, you can say that this is not much (but every cent lost by you is a cent in your competition’s pocket). Now, multiply this situation with 50 customers… how does it look losing EUR 180,000. If I would be a shareholder I would instantly fire you!

This story hits the news, bringing another wave of contempt for hoteliers that already have raised the prices in anticipation of summer holiday season.