While I find the Vilnius template to be a great model to follow, there are reports coming in from other places too, with organizations and individuals rising up to lend their hand in the best way they can.
Tata Group, one of the biggest and most respected conglomerates in the Subcontinent has made two strong commitments – Daily wage workers in all Tata group companies will be paid salary for the Lockdown months. Secondly, Tata outlined its move to pay the dues of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises without any delay.
Anand Mahindra, the Chairman of Mahindra Group is one of the first billionaire businessmen to come ahead and provide solutions. “To help in the response to this unprecedented threat, we at the Mahindra Group will immediately begin work on how our manufacturing facilities can make ventilators. At Mahindra Holidays, we stand ready to offer our resorts as temporary care facilities,” Mahindra offered in May when the Coronavirus was seen to subsume everything around.
Sadly, no segment is being left untouched by the perils of the virus this time around. The Hotel, Travel, Aviation Industry seems to be the worst hit, worldwide.
An Italian restaurant, in the early days of the outbreak, put out a social media message requesting people to buy coupons now which could be utilized to dine in later when the situation improves, in order to keep the local restaurants afloat.
Some Airlines announced pay cuts for the top management so as to ward off the immediate and pressing business need for layoffs.
The loss to the travel and hospitality industry is immense. The recovery, experts say, will kick in possibly around the second quarter of ’21.
Travel Agents and Tour Operators project a similar timeline for business and leisure travel to recoup and return. Some say that while air travel may already be showing signs of a slow recovery, it will take until 2024 to get to pre-pandemic levels.
Analysts have forecast a loss upwards of $1.2 Trillion for the global tourism industry this year; and total job losses in the sector are staring vacuously at a figure that threatens to touch 197 million.
Yet, many top of the line hotel chains and individual hotels are braving it to once again open their doors within the templates of the new normalcy.
The local region, the community, the in-city customers have become more crucial to help with the bailout.
One thing is certain, we will bounce back. That is a fact because the human spirit is such.
Already, we are adopting new ways of doing things, whether it is work from home, or virtual meets and webinars, or working staycations, with heightened sanitization being the most luxurious service offered.
But the zeal must be tempered with reality and rationality. Perhaps it may not be wrong to err on the side of caution.
Yes, businesses must survive. But so must lives.
It is quite the conundrum, this coronavirus pandemic.
Still, I leave you with optimism rising over the pensiveness, as I bring to your attention the prophecy made by Sylvia Browne in her 2008 book “End of Days.”
While Browne wrote about the devastation the virus would unleash and the obstinacy it would show in the face of treatment, but she predicts that “the illness will suddenly vanish as quickly as it arrived, attack again ten years later, and then disappear completely.”
In the interim, we would have acquired new ways to Survive, Strengthen, Sustain, Surmount, and Succeed.
That and the fact that Avi Schiffmann’s site tells us that as on date there are 164 vaccines in development!
Thank you for always being so wise Ken. It is highly appreciated.
Excellent, Aruna. I learned long ago that any crisis brings out the best and worst in people. You have noted some of those that bring their best forward in time of need. Thanks.