How Coronavirus hit our business
Let me just start by saying the real toll of the novel coronavirus will be told in the loss of lives and none of the following is meant to minimize that. The economic impact is already devastating, for our industry and many industries in general. A lot of people are hurting right now, confused what to do about the plans they have made in the coming months. Businesses are shutting down or running at partial capacity. Everyone should be practicing social distancing and I’m honestly disgusted seeing crowds still gathering. For those of us in the photo-tourism industry, if coronavirus hasn’t affected your business yet, it’s going to sooner than later.
This is our eighth year in business. Each year has been better than the last, up until now. We are a small business, employing ourselves year round along with several seasonal employees. We are pretty busy from January to October most years, but Spring is our bread and butter. March astrophotography workshops in Big Bend are followed by six weeks of various wildflower workshops and daily Texas Bluebonnet Tours around Central Texas. Then we go into eight weeks of Tornado Adventures, across the Great Plains, vans full of photographers from all over the world, hunting for tornadoes.
I’m sure you noticed sales are already tanking. The pandemic has already cost us upwards of $75,000 in lost sales. Sales are down 45% so far compared to last year. Usually they are about 150% more each year. Now they have all but dried up. A few pity sales from our best customers for much later in the year, which mean a TON to our morale right now. I’m not complaining and we are getting by, but it hurts to see this happening to a business that we have worked so hard on.
We have reached a point where we simply can not keep our heads in the sand. This is going to hurt, but you need to start cancelling your workshops, or plan to, even if they’re smaller groups. A good portion of our guests are considered seniors, who knows how many have immune issues which put them at high risk to have serious complications from COVID-19. Even if it’s less than 10 people in your group, are you willing to kill a couple people or more to run your workshops this year?
A Storm on the Horizon
2019 Tornado Adventure Guests Photograph a Supercell in Colorado.
My first warning that this virus could have serious implications for our business was back in late December. I had spent weeks communicating with a gentlemen in China who organized photography trips to the United States. 16 Chinese nationals were about to book for a week long Tornado Adventure, when suddenly all communication stopped.
I have yet to hear back from them and I hope they are all well today. I believed at the time this would be contained and probably over in a few weeks.
Handling the coronavirus Crisis as a business
Guests lined up under the Milky Way at a 2016 Astrophotography Workshop
In eight years hosting workshops, I had never cancelled an event. Yesterday, we began cancelling all workshops and tours in 15 day increments. We are currently cancelled through April 1st, and I wouldn’t be surprised if another 15 day cancellation is coming in a week or so, but I’m not sure.
We have also waived all cancellation fees allowing all guests to transfer payments to later in the year or into Spring 2021. Don’t be scared to cancel. Most of your guests are going to be understanding and a lot of them honestly don’t want to attend anyways, but are afraid of losing their money. Some people can’t attend, like many of our guests who are foreign and under travel bans or Americans under shelter in place orders, like those in California.
Don’t wait until the day before to cancel. You have to give people notice, especially if your guests are traveling.
I started preparing our astrophotography guests on Friday the 13th for the possibility of a cancellation of our first workshops starting on March 28th in Terlingua, Texas. I had hoped to run the workshop alone and cancel indoor classes, but it became apparent that wasn’t going to be enough. Even though it’s a very remote region with no confirmed cases of coronavirus, they literally have one hospital serving a 500 mile radius for the entire region. I personally couldn’t live with myself if one of my guests brought coronavirus to a place with a hundred or so hospital beds and one respirator. I told them to cancel their plans to travel there and I hope they all take my advice.
What you can do in the meantime
We have been ahead of the curve on this thing. Our family started social distancing 14 days ago. I do hope this ends shorter than forecast, but I’m not counting on it. If everyone would voluntarily stay home and practice good hygiene this could be over soon, but those are two massive IFs.
The shock of all this is starting to wear off and some efforts I am considering if this is a prolonged scenario include online classes and live video demonstrations. I’ll probably update my blog more and will soon open 2021 dates.
I am also starting the #StayThe F*ckHome photo challenge, challenging photographers to make photos from their own homes for seven days, nominating a new photographer or friend each day. You don’t have to go to destinations to make good photography. Be creative.
We will get through this. Be kind to one another. Don’t hoard supplies and check on those who may need some extra help. And seriously, y’all go sit down so we aren’t dealing with this for months and months.