Please Stop Giving Discounts to Super Spreaders

[canyonwalker]

"Now is a great time to travel!" countless ads from airlines, hotels, and other travel companies breathlessly advise me from my inbox every morning.

"No it's fucking NOT!" I hiss in reply at my computer screen. Now is NOT a great time to travel. The risk of infection is an elevated danger not just for the traveler but also for all the prudent people they inflict their traveling ways upon. Everyone who plays it safe and smart and only goes out for essential trips is placed at higher risk by each of these super-spreaders gadding through.

"Especially with today's sale of 30%//50%/70% off!" continue the ads.

"Would you PLEASE stop offering discounts to super-spreaders! " I seethe. Sheesh, it's bad enough some people have chosen to bury their heads in the sand against the reality of this pandemic and cannot think outside the envelope of their own gratification anyway. We don't need profit-seekers encouraging antisocial irresponsibility with sales.

Comments

[kjn]

To a degree I can understand it, because the travel and hospitality industry was really hard hit. Lots of especially small and independent hotels going into default here in Sweden, and I imagine it's worse in places more dependent on tourism.

But I agree. The big fault here lies with the governments, who missed a big thing early on in the pandemic, by hiring hotel spaces as a way to ease the cramped housing for disadvantaged communities vulnerable to Covid.

[canyonwalker]

As a frequent traveler for the past umpteen years I appreciate how hard this pandemic has hit the travel industry. Business travel has slowed to a near standstill, and while leisure travel isn't impacted as sorely as that it's still at a fraction of what it was prior to March.

Back in April time frame the travel industry adopted a "We're all in this together" message, advertising that people should stay home for now and of course would be welcomed back as customers when it was safe and responsible to travel again. They dropped that messaging after a month or two as they realized the cost of actual social responsibility was far higher than the value of feel-good brand equity they were purchasing. The thing is, as we're well into the upswing of the third wave of the pandemic it is today less safe and less responsible than it ever has been!

BTW, governments did rent space in hotels locally to house the homeless and those displaced by the virus. It happened at the local level because, of course, there's close zero effective leadership nationally. It petered out after a few months, though, for multiple reasons. 1) Localities have limited budgets and are prevented from borrowing in times of need by their bylaws. 2) Hotel operators and their paying guests disliked the hardship residents as an undesirable element. 3) As leisure travel started opening in this region back up in early summer, hotels were happy to see the hardship program tapered off while filling their properties instead with regular, paying customers. The programs were curtailed after a few months and not restarted.

[kjn]

Good to hear some places tried to use hotel spaces like that. I've heard of no similar program here in Sweden, even of hotels that actually did go into default.

And yes, it's sad the way helping people is hinged on them being "deserving".