Coronavirus concerns ripple through travel industry

Local travel consultants are fielding numerous calls per day from worried clients about canceling their upcoming vacation plans due to the recent coronavirus outbreak. 

Maureen Schoomer of Yonder Travel Lounge in the Town of Grafton and Lori Dahm of Biever Travel in Port Washington are telling their customers to relax.

“It’s definitely a concern right now; almost everyone I talk to asks me about it,” Schoomer said. “Personally, I think everything is going to get under control in a month or two and it’s not going to be an issue any longer.”

The World Health Organization has classified the outbreak as a public health emergency of international concern and the U.S. has placed a ban on travel to China.

On Saturday, Vice President Mike Pence urged citizens not to travel to affected areas of Italy and South Korea for non-essential activities.

“Right now, there are no warnings to not travel to any countries except for China,” Dahm said. “Nobody’s going to China. You can’t even fly there. That’s completely off the board right now.”

Prospective travelers who are on the fence about whether to visit destinations outside of the country over the next few months should be aware that the recent spread of the coronavirus isn’t a justified excuse to cancel a trip and get a refund, the travel agents said. 

Dahm and Schoomer said they always recommend getting travel insurance, but canceling a trip because of the outbreak doesn’t guarantee a complete refund.  

“You can’t cancel for fear. Insurance doesn’t cover fear,” Dahm said. “The problem is people think they can cancel because they have insurance.”

Schoomer said she has a few customers traveling to Italy, which has been a reported area of concern, in the coming weeks. She said some travel protection plans can reimburse a percentage of the cost of canceled trips.

“It depends where you go and what type of policy you get — they’re all across the board. Generally, a cancel-for-any-reason policy is what you would need,” she said. “I know for Europe and some other countries those types of policies only cover 75% of what you booked.”

Schoomer added that some tour groups such as Funjet Vacations and Apple Vacations may reimburse the full cost of a trip no matter the scenario.

Dahm said European tour operators keep on top of updates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to ensure the correct precautions are in place.

“If they know it’s going to be a concern, they are going to cancel the tours. They’re not going to put their passengers at high risk for something that’s going to give them poor publicity down the road,” she said.

Schoomer recently returned from a 10-day cruise in the southern Caribbean and said fear was palpable among the passengers, even though there have been no reported cases in the area.

“The number of people I saw wearing masks was surprising, considering there is no coronavirus in the Caribbean,” she said.

Dahm said she is keeping customers who will be taking cruises informed about the necessary travel measures. 

“We’re still getting a lot of cruise bookings and those people are also concerned,” she said. “All we can do is update them about the precautions all the cruise lines are taking. We’re getting emails from the cruise lines throughout the day and we’re letting our people know.”

Dahm and Schoomer said they have seen this type of fear before with the swine flu in 2009 and the Western African Ebola virus epidemic in 2013. Schoomer said the swine flu devastated the travel industry during its scare.

“It was terrible. It destroyed some of the resorts in Mexico because so many people quit going there. It hurt a lot of travel agents too because Mexican travel is their bread and butter,” Schoomer said. 

“I don’t see anything like that happening right now because the hot spots are far away from us. I don’t see anybody booking a winter getaway to China.”