Skift Podcast: Selling Travel in Times of Crisis

The second season of the Skift Podcast is humming along, but for our sixth episode we slow things down.

Anyone who works in the travel industry knows that travel isn’t immune from tragedy. When the unexpected strikes, how do destinations respond? How are they hurt? When is it OK to urge people to return — and what’s the best way to do that?

In this podcast, we’re talking about the question of marketing and selling travel in a time of crisis, whether that means vacations to Paris after the recent terror attacks or cruises in the Caribbean in the midst of a Zika outbreak.

Those are only the most immediate pressing issues, but even recent history is full of examples: Ebola in West Africa, tsunamis in Japan and , Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and of course the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington, D.C.

For insight, we’re joined by longtime travel agent Yaron Yarimi, who has reassured or redirected customers around trouble spots for more than two decades. Yarimi is joined by Cristyne Nicholas, who was president and CEO of NYC & Company – the tourism and marketing organization for New York City – between 1999 and 2006. She’s now co-founder and CEO of Nicholas & Lence Communications, a strategic communications firm. The guests are joined by Skift Podcast host Hannah Sampson, and reporter Dan Peltier.

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