Changing conditions outside your business can impact how visitors plan or book travel to your destination or experience.

Examples include changes to:

  • Fuel prices, which can impact visitor spending behaviour and business costs
  • Road, rail or air access to your business or destination, including unexpected changes to infrastructure or schedules
  • Safety perceptions of your location or experience type, particularly after a public safety incident

This guide provides quick tips for visitor experience businesses to assist with managing and addressing unexpected changes.

For quick tips relating to fires, floods and other natural disasters, please refer to Destination NSW's Quick Tips for Resilience guides that help visitor economy businesses prepare, respond and recover in the event of a natural disaster.

Assess the impact on your business

Nature of the unexpected change: Refer to government and industry information and advice regarding the change

Duration of unexpected change: Is the duration of the change impact known? Is it temporary or likely to be permanent or ongoing?

Visitor markets: Are all of your visitors affected or only some visitor types? Can you strengthen your appeal to visitors that are not affected by the change?

Visitor behaviour: What behaviours do you anticipate in your visitors due to the change? Which specific aspect(s) of your product offering does this relate to?

Operations and staff: Will the change affect operations e.g. deliveries, other businesses you work with, transport and catering, staff safety or staff access to the workplace?

Financial and legal: Contact your bank or financial institution, your accountant, your insurance provider and, if necessary, seek independent legal advice early to assess the impacts, discuss options and determine the practical steps needed to manage the impacts on your business.

Review and refine your experience offering

Accommodation and experience providers often review and update their products to meet changing visitor needs. Refining the product offering can also help businesses adjust when unexpected changes occur.

Update existing experiences: Minor changes may help visitors include your experience in their itinerary. This may include changes to inclusions, interpretation, itineraries, opening hours, start times or duration.

Offer alternative experiences: Offering an alternative visitor experience, where practical, can help to retain bookings during periods of change that impact existing product bookings, while using your unique expertise to offer a great visitor experience.

Update customer service: Consider how you deliver customer service during change, including:

  • Handling cancellations: It’s helpful to ask for the cancellation reason where possible. You may offer alternatives prior to finalising a cancellation, such as rebooking on an alternative experience or for a future date, offering credit for future use – ensure your policy aligns with consumer rights.
  • Flexibility on booking amendments: Where practical, this may enable visitors to more confidently book with you if changes impact their travel itinerary.
  • Ensure that any new or adapted visitor experiences and products have appropriate licenses and permits to operate and are covered by your Public Liability Insurance. Check the Australian Business Licence and Information Service or contact the Service NSW Business Bureau for more information.

Provide clear information

Share clear information about changes to your experience through your online channels and industry network.

Update your website

  • Clearly communicate any changes to your product and pricing. Ensure you follow NSW Fair Trading guidance on pricing
  • Update your website FAQ to explain changes
  • Update your online booking software with any product changes
  • Update your Australian Tourism Data Warehouse (ATDW) and Google Business online listings
  • Update your listings on any online travel agent websites so descriptions accurately reflect current conditions
  • Include changes in your consumer-facing e-newsletter to subscribers
  • Create a fact sheet detailing your revised product – this can be shared with your team, your tourism network, and local accommodation providers
  • Advise your local tourism organisation, visitor information centre, council and Destination Network
  • Tell Destination NSW about the changes to your experience through the Experience Update form.

Support your team

  • Check on your team: Discuss how the change affects them and what kind of support they need. This may include mental health support or temporary changes to their responsibilities or work schedule
  • Enable staff to deliver updated experiences and service: Prepare your team with details and instructions for delivering and supporting revised experiences, communications, and operational procedures
  • Update suppliers: Tell your suppliers about any changes that may be necessary.

Communicate effectively

Social media

Travellers often turn to social media first for updates during periods of change. You can use your social channels to keep them updated.

  • Monitor comments, direct messages and tagged posts closely and respond to visitor questions as quickly as possible
  • If your business or experience has been impacted by change, acknowledge the change and any safety information. Ensure messaging on social media is in line with relevant government advice
  • Post factual details about business changes and, where possible, include clear information about what visitors should do next. This might include links to updated opening hours, booking changes, refund policies or alternative experiences
  • Pin important updates to the top of your social media profiles or saving them in Instagram Highlights so visitors can easily find the latest information
  • Be consistent: Information on your social media channels should match what is your website, booking platforms and other digital channels
  • Circumstances change: Update previous posts or share follow-up updates so audiences know the latest situation
  • Inspire: If visitors cannot experience your product or destination due to short-term changes, you might consider posting inspiring images and videos so visitors can dream of their next trip once the change is no longer a factor
  • Avoid posting and sharing misinformation or potential ‘fake news’
  • Post sensitively and show empathy for the areas, businesses or people affected by change.

Responding to media

  • Make sure your staff know who the media spokesperson is in your business and your approach with media
  • Stay positive: If media enquiries arise with negative sentiment, focus on positive language, for example what you are looking forward to, excited by, or upcoming opportunities. Avoid negative language or sensationalising issues
  • Only comment on your own business or organisation. Avoid commenting on other operators or organisations
  • Focus comments on things in your control. For example, “I’m not an expert on [A], but what I can say is [comment relating to your own business]”
  • If you are not comfortable responding to a question, or feel it’s outside your expertise, it’s best not to comment
  • Provide consistent and coordinated information on your business and destination to media. This may include your product fact sheet.

Stay connected with your distributors

If you are selling your accommodation or experience through distributors, such as online travel agents or inbound tour operators, it’s important to keep them updated on any changes that impact your product offering for visitors that have booked via these channels.

Keep your distributors updated on:

  • Status of your business operations and any impact on current and future visitors
  • Experience or itinerary changes that you are implementing to adapt to changing conditions
  • Cancellations required due to impacts to your business, in line with your cancellation policy
  • If a product is temporarily unavailable, update the live inventory on your online booking software to block availability so visitors cannot book online – both directly and via the online travel agent platforms that link to the software
  • Refer to the distributor’s contract terms and conditions relating to product and rate changes prior to applying any changes. Distributor terms may require businesses honour existing bookings at the contracted rate – it’s good practice to discuss with your distribution partners as a first step.

Resources

NSW Government

Destination NSW

NSW First Program:

External support