FareHarbor Recommended Resources to Follow

Supporting you throughout this time comes in many forms. Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is ensuring that our Customer Support teams are always available, 24/7, to assist with any Dashboard or business inquiries. This also means sharing tips, resources, and updates that allow you to be better informed and prepared.

For your convenience, we have been adding to our Help Center and Compass libraries, new resources that you can follow along for updates. In addition, we will continually update this page with relevant information including FareHarbor tips and best practices, industry insights, and useful examples from our fellow tour and activity operators.

Financial Resources 

• Our Guide to Small Business Loans: If you’re planning on applying for a small business loan but not sure where to begin, this guide will provide an overview of common small business loans (Americas). Please visit our Help Center to learn more about specific loan details available in your Region (Americas & Global), State or City. 
• SBA Disaster assistance: The U.S. Small Business Administration is offering low-interest federal disaster loans for working capital to small businesses suffering substantial economic injury as a result of the Coronavirus (COVID-19).
• Small Business Relief Tracker: In an effort to help business owners & tour operators find financial relief, here is a running list of all of the government agencies, private companies, and nonprofit organizations that are extending support.

Business & Marketing Tips 

• 13 Ways Businesses Can Use SEO & Marketing to Combat Coronavirus Impact: Your initial reaction may be to shut down existing marketing efforts, including your SEO. SearchEngine Journal provides 13 ways SEO and marketing tasks to do for a quicker recovery and why you should “keep calm and optimize on.” 
• FareHarbor Webinars: FareHarbor is producing a new webinar series to help you optimize your business and be ready when normal activity returns. To view the complete list of webinar topics and timezones, please visit our help page. As always, our webinars will be free to attend and will be available across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC regions.
• How To Adapt and Prepare for Travelers: If you haven’t already, check out our blog to see what we can do as an industry to adapt to the growing concerns of customers and travelers. 
• Compass Articles: You can Login with your same FH dashboard credentials and start exploring business-boosting resources and hone your skills to set yourself up for future success. We’ve collected a few you might like below:
• • Marketing To Your Local Communities
  • Email Tips During & After COVID-19
  • Virtual Experiences
  • SEO, Marketing & Business Tips to Combat Coronavirus Impact

Industry Insights, Expertise, & News

• Guidelines & Best Practices for Reopening: provided by the International Association of Amusement Parks  (IAAPA), this 30+ page guide covers sanitation, social distancing, capacity management and much more which can be applied to reopening your tours and activities.
• Tourpreneur: Subscribe to Shane Whaley’s TourPreneur podcasts where he provides extensive coverage and actionable tips to better arm tour operators during this time. We recommend subscribing to both his email newsletter and to look for his latest podcast.
  • Whaley hosted this podcast with guest and industry veteran, Peter Syme, to discuss a battle plan to deal with the impact of the Coronavirus on our tour businesses. 
• Arival: Our friends at Arival recently held a Town Hall discussion with leading tour and activity operators regarding the current landscape. If you were unable to attend, you can visit this page to access the key takeaways, download the findings from their recent survey, or watch the recorded version. 
  • Arival will also provide a variety of online events and webinars for additional insights during these challenging times. 
• Live Blogs: 
  • Skift’s Live Blog: Since January, Skift has been monitoring the COVID-19 impact on the travel and tourism industry. Their blog is regularly updated to reflect the latest news about coronavirus and its impact on hotels, airlines, cruise lines, tourism destinations, and other sectors of the travel industry.
  • PhocusWire’s Live Blog: PhocusWire’s live blog also includes their own extensive coverage and contains articles and commentary from their sister brands in the Northstar Travel Group (in meetings, retail travel and business travel), WebInTravel, and updates from reliable news outlets and official government/agency bulletins.

Sources for Inspiration

• Virtual Tours: The growing need for social distancing has introduced the emergence of virtual tours! Both Forbes and Insider covered several tour companies and attractions that started offering virtual tours or seminars that customers can do in the comfort of their own homes.  
• How We Can Help the Travel & Tourism industry: We all have a role to play, here is how we can help the Travel and  Tourism industry during this crisis. 
• Connect with Facebook Groups: If there is one thing the last few weeks have shown us, it’s that we are a strongly-knit community. Whether you want to start a discussion or provide your own advice, there are several Facebook groups and forums available for you to connect with other tour operators such as Tour Operators United and Tour Activity Owners Worldwide.
• Client Testimonials: In the coming weeks, we will spotlight several of our fellow tour operators who are adapting, innovating, and providing new perspectives during this time.
  • Caroline Conner, Lyon Wine Tasting: Adjusting to the recent norm of social distancing, Caroline has begun offering virtual happy hours to provide educational content and keep customers engaged. Best of all, it’s currently free to join!