29/03/2021
Recently I have had some people ask me if I am accepting bookings if someone comes and asks.
In most cases, to be honest, the answer is no. Hopefully as you read on, you may gain an understanding of why I am having to do this.


I cannot possibly add to my undo list for a booking fee of $55.00 for a domestic flight, or trigger the PTSD that has developed since I began cancelling around 35 bookings over a year ago (which still continues).
If you have a credit with me, then the answer will be yes. I have kept my business open, at a loss, to facilitate the rebooking of those credits and also to gather refunds where possible. However, due to the volatility of borders, I am not taking on new clients and I am having to turn down bookings like packages and domestic flight bookings (that I would have normally taken on with fervour), in order protect my time and my mental health.
I cannot compete with a state or territory government’s ability to close a border within 4 hours. I cannot compete with the ability of airlines to bump returning citizens from coming from overseas, nor do I agree with the fact that people have to purchase a business class ticket to “try” to return and get in on that cap. I cannot condone the continuous rebooking of credits when people’s arrangements get changed at the 11th hour.
I cannot spend 5 times longer than a booking took to make to undo a booking, like a domestic flight, which results in for every hour I spent making a booking, 5 hours UNPAID work to undo it and then at some point rebook it.
Two weeks ago, some very loyal clients (and friends who are very understanding of the PTSD that has evolved from this never ending s**t storm and the triggers within that) approached me to work with me for a trip they would like to take and to help me try and get some confidence in making a booking again, taking a deposit and paying the deposit to a supplier. It was careful negotiations and their goal, besides satisfying their need to do something exciting, was to help me get back on the horse, in little steps. I am exceptionally grateful for this opportunity and their understanding.
We made the reservation with the supplier, I took the deposit, I paid the deposit. That was on Wednesday.
For some background, this is for a Kimberley cruise in a few months.
The Kimberley season for 2021 has been created to enable people to “holiday here this year”. It is so money can be put in to devastated local economies and support a decimated industry. Suppliers have just finalised programs and recently put them up for sale. Others have had their programs in place and for sale for a while. Either way, remember, you are being encouraged to “holiday here this year”.
It is the first new booking (and so not a credit rebook) I have made since last June (that’s right, 10 months ago) and only the second new booking I have made in nearly 14 months (the first booking I made was for Sept 2022 and the PTSD hadn’t quite set in). This is the first time I have looked down the barrel of obtaining some imminent income from a booking made since this thing began. It would be the first realised income from a new booking in 14 months. That’s right. 14 months.
On Friday, two days after my clients had committed their money, the NT Government moved the goal posts, this information was communicated to me on SUNDAY. The NT government decided that no ship carrying over 100 people including crew would be allowed into the NT. This affects nearly EVERY SINGLE VESSEL and EVERY SINGLE COMPANY involved in the 2021 Kimberley Season, that is trying to get you to “Holiday here this year”.
These cruises are for Australian residents only AND you are required to test within 72 hours of boarding and on the dock. The conditions of carriage are ridiculously strict and their COVID safe plans are like nothing I have ever seen.
The season is basically sold out because of the “holiday here this year campaign”.
The NT has been screaming that its tourism industry is under threat, yet it just essentially cut off its nose to spite its face.
So here I sit (after pushing through walls of anxiety with the help and support of my beautiful clients), with the income I was to have earned from making this booking now in complete jeopardy.
My client’s are now sitting on tenterhooks wondering if their holiday will go ahead and what this means for them (and their money) as suppliers who have diligently created this program to satisfy the “HOLIDAY HERE THIS YEAR” mantra, scramble for solutions. The suppliers are also now staring down the barrel of their hard work to enable you to “Holiday here this year” also going down the gurgler, purely because a state/territory government has suddenly decided on a Friday afternoon that they’d move the goal posts.
The ships doing this program carry around 100-150 pax at any time, plus a small crew. They are not big, they are not the Ruby Princess. Ironically, you can travel wth several hundred on a train, up and down and across this country, there's no restrictions on that.
Thankfully, unlike a package or an airline booking, in the event I have to undo this booking, it won’t involve multiple calls or eleventy million hours on hold, it’s one supplier, one call. As disappointing as it would be, at least my clients will have tried to “holiday here this year”.
The industry cannot recover with this constant moving of the goal posts and pulling out the carpet from under an agent’s feet. We are not worthy of targeted government support, yet our ability to trade and make an income is based on 1) the mercy of 8 different governments (6 states and two territories) running the borders of this country which effectively makes it EIGHT separate sets of rules that can be changed at the drop of a hat and has them moving the goal posts and STILL closing borders at any given moment; and 2) The federal government opening the international border.
Your ability to “holiday here this year” involves a crystal ball to try and pick the right state, the right part of that state and the right dates to avoid a lockdown, border closure or quarantine on your return, oh and to not have MORE money tied up in credits every time you have to cancel or change because of the above.
Like anything in life, sometimes you have to learn to say “No”, and hopefully this gives you some insight in to why I have had to make some difficult choices when it comes to the bookings I can actually mentally cope with taking on.
Thanks for listening and the greatest of thanks those who have done nothing but try to keep me going and to try to keep me from drowning.
