The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
After tourism nuclear winter, tour operator restarts in Wyoming
If one were to pick a spot in the continental United States to get away from coronavirus, the Wyoming wilderness in the dead of winter might make the short list — the state is ahead of only Alaska for population density at six residents per square mile.
Of course, you have to get there and back safe and sound. But Tauck president Jennifer Tombaugh knows folks who have already done so and believes the travel itch will increase alongside vaccinations in the coming months.
After a lengthy hibernation during the COVID-19 pandemic — it’s first since World War II — the luxury tour operator Tauck is back in business in the new year. A small group of clients recently completed a trip to Yellowstone National Park, taking in sights like Old Faithful and a wolf pair on the move near sunset.
With its headquarters in Wilton, Tauck is among a handful of prominent travel industry vendors based in Connecticut, the most prominent the Booking Holdings and its Priceline and Kayak subsidiaries in Norwalk and Stamford respectively. Others including conference organizer Reed Exhibitions in Norwalk and the river boat operator American Cruise Lines in Guilford.
All have been in the grips of a nuclear winter for the travel industry dating back to last March, as the U.S. Travel Operators Association staged its annual conference virtual in December. But there are signs of a thaw, as states ramp up vaccinations and USTOA join other organizations in touting “health passport” apps that travelers can use to confirm their vaccination status at airports and travel destinations.
“Every Thursday at 9 a.m., we have a restart meeting,” said Tombaugh, president of Tauck under CEO Dan Mahar. “Every week we are looking at what’s possible.”
That analysis is occurring across the travel industry, both among the vendors that deliver tourists and the destinations that depend on them to support their economies.
In survey results published last December by the travel information technology giant Amadeus, more than half of travelers indicated they would take fewer trips than in the past, but spend more days on the road for the ones they take.
“To make up for lost time, travelers are likely to gravitate to ‘big idea’ or ‘bucket list’ trips,” Amadeus stated in the report, “If they’re going to fly, they will stay longer, and invest more to make sure that one trip really counts.”
Hawaii provides some of the most detailed and up-to-date tourism data in the nation tracking airline and cruise ship arrivals, with visitors swelling significantly in December in advance of general vaccine availability. After easing travel restrictions in October, more than 71,500 visitors from the eastern United States arrived in December, 30,000 more than in November.
That was still two-thirds below Hawaii’s normal December visitation levels, but setting the stage for a better year in 2021. Fresh worries persist, however, on whether vaccines will be as effective against new variants of coronavirus that are now spreading globally.
If hit hard by the pandemic, travel agencies and tour operators could see one unforeseen benefit as a result — reinforcement of their selling point as troubleshooters when things go awry. Tauck touts its own “global response team” of some 50 employees who stand ready to work through any thorny problems encountered by its tours — including during Zika and SARS outbreaks in prior years.
On the doorstep of the COVID-19 pandemic, Tauck was coming off the best year in its history, extending back to salesman Arthur Tauck Sr.’s original 1,100 mile driving tour in 1925 through New England and Canada. It remains a family business today, with Arthur Tauck Jr. the company chair and the board including family members Liz Tauck Walters, Robin Tauck, Peter Tauck and Kiki Tauck Mahar.
Tombaugh did not say how many employees Tauck furloughed during the pandemic and how many it has on staff today. The town of Wilton reported the company’s headquarters staff at 145 workers as of June last year, 100 fewer than in mid-2019. In prior years Tauck reported having a total of 550 workers, about half of them remote.
A small group of them have been making the rounds for several months, assessing the most promising locales to book tours.
“As [coronavirus] case loads began to decline a bit, and as we started to look at where in the U.S. might be possible,” Tombaugh said. “We had a team that went out and did a recon trip to meet with every supplier, every partner. And we went to some of our tour guides and said, ‘can we do this?’
“The team came back and said, ‘Yep, we think we can do this — and we can do this in a way that preserves the guest experience, ... and we can wow them,’” she continued. “We can do this in a very responsible way that protects the health and safety of our guests but also can free them up to be present and enjoy this amazing destination.”
The Yellowstone tour was added to Tauck’s itinerary as part of its ongoing collaboration and promotion with filmmaker Ken Burns and author Duncan Dayton, which has resulted in tours pegged to documentary series on the Civil War and America’s national parks.
“Ten years ago I remember standing in Walpole, N.H. and looking at Dayton in the parking lot, and he said, ‘The one trip that Ken and I are going to insist that you do is winter in Yellowstone,’ ” Tombaugh recalled. “I kind of looked at him and said, ‘You ever been there in winter?’ ”
If not in the dead of winter, plenty more Tauck clients will be able to say they have been in the spring and summer — the company has sold out its 18 “American Safari” trips this year to Yellowstone and the Grand Teton range. Nearly half of its Hawaii trips are booked solid, and a “Grand New England” tour in its own backyard for foliage season this fall has already filled 10 of its 24 trips, which run between $6,000 and $7,000 taking in sights from Boston to the Berkshires, through Vermont’s Green Mountains and across to Downeast Maine and Acadia National Park.
“It’s these amazing opportunities to be connected with a destination and to be reminded of the beauty and the glory that’s all around us — even in a pandemic,” Tombaugh said. “There’s such a correlation between planning a trip and your happiness — literally, it gives you something to hope for and to look forward to . ... This is why we do this.”