The year is coming to an end. This year surely is an unprecedented year for many, including myself. Looking back, I have never expected to witness such a life-changing year as 2020. How do I review the year?
Despite all things that happened around me, this is the most meaningful year of my life. I attended many international webinars, learn a new skill and actually finished doing many things. This article acts as a self-reflection to remind me when there’s a will there’s a way.
JAN 2020: COVID-19 OUTBREAK
The year started with COVID-19 in the major news headline. As the COVID-19 outbreak in China has escalated to an epidemic level, the central government imposed a directive to stop all inbound and outbound activities to curb the spread of the outbreak. Subsequently, all China-bound tours were cancelled on the eve of the Lunar New Year.
Followed by the Sabah state government banned flights from China and Hong Kong on 30th January. Consequently, we had the quietest Lunar New Year without Chinese and Hong Kong tourists. Seafood restaurants and shopping malls were seen empty. Tour guides and tour leaders spent the new year holiday at home with family.
Our new year break was cut short too. On the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, we returned to the office to deal with China-bound flight tickets and tour refunds as well as inbound tour cancellations. Payments made to China agents were decided not to refund back due to extra foreign exchange transfer charges. Same as payments made to local hotels, which were also put in credit.
FEB 2020: THE SPREAD OF COVID-19
When China was placed under full national lockdown, the novel coronavirus has slowly begun to spread beyond China’s borders. Diamond Princess was the first cruise ship to have a major outbreak on board, with over 700 people became infected and 14 deaths.
Governments then responded by preventing cruise ships from docking at their ports and advising people from travelling. Customers were more willing to forfeit tour deposits to cancel their overseas trips. We received calls from customers at odd hours to reconsider their tour cancellation issues.
MAR 2020: MOVEMENT CONTROL ORDER
The COVID-19 pandemic turned the travel industry upside down by this month. The industry suffered severe losses, with countless cruise ships docked and passenger planes ground at international airports.
Major cities in China except Wuhan have been freed from the 60-day lockdown gradually.
We faced a different scenario in Malaysia. Our Prime Minister declared the Movement Control Order (MCO) to contain the spread of COVID-19 due to the Tabligh cluster. Initially, it was only a 14-day order but was extended into early May 2020.
Our daily life came to a standstill. The border was closed to foreign tourists and all international flights were cancelled. We had to stay home with police patrol round the clock. Worse still, customers’ children were stranded in Taiwan and Canada as AirAsia cancelled flights without alternative options.
I did my best to request our Taiwanese agent to arrange accommodation for Fiona and her husband while searching for the next available flight to return to Malaysia. They finally returned home on 26th March by taking a China Airlines flight.
At the same time, I searched for a possible transit airport for Leslie’s son. Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC) banned all transit passengers on the day he was supposed to board EVA Air from Seattle. Thank grateful to Tokyo which was bidding to hold Summer Olympics in July. Japan was the only North Asia airport that allowed transit passengers in its airports at that time. I found ANA Air for him via Tokyo Narita. The AirAsia planes parked at KLIA2 photo was taken by him.
APR 2020: JOB FURLOUGHED
There’s hope for the pandemic. Wuhan city was freed from lockdown after 76 days.
On our shore, when MCO was extended for the second time, the company decided to furlough her staff to keep the business afloat. We were then put in the Employment Retention Program under the PRIHATIN stimulus package.
MAY 2020: WORKING FROM HOME
When MCO was lifted to Conditional MCO, we returned to the office to collect documents to assist customers with flight and tour refund issues. Customers are our top priority and we will serve them with strong dedication regardless of our job condition.
Before May 2020, I normally use my phone for Wechat and Whatsapp, and sometimes Waze for directions and Camera.
The dramatic shift to working from home resulted in higher reliance on my phone. Now I use it more frequent than before, especially for work meetings, webinars and online learning via Zoom and Cisco Webex.
JUL 2020: COMPLETED ITIL4 FOUNDATION for SERVICE MANAGEMENT COURSE
As remote work became the new normal, the top three benefits of this adjusted lifestyle are a flexible schedule, working from any location and no commute.
I completed the ITIL4 Foundation for Service Management course which I signed up for last October. Now pending for the certification examination.
However remote working has its challenges too. Mine are distractions at home, reliable internet connection and efficient collaboration among the team.
SEP 2020: NEW ZEALAND GOLD SPECIALIST
Since most of my normal routines have changed for six months, I prepared the virtual tour of New Zealand and obtained the New Zealand Gold Specialist badge.
SEP 2020: ONLINE MOON CAKE SALES
We teamed up together as JMM Cookies East Malaysia agents. Sold over 500 units of moon cakes.
We were the best-selling Sabah agent of the year. Our Managing Director received a treadmill home gym.
OCT 2020: FINANCIAL LITERACY PROJECT
The bank loan moratorium ended on 30th September. Many friends are either unemployed or furloughed like me. They seek help to extend their loan payments.
After listening to their financial difficulties, I helped them with letter writing. I later decided to start a simple project – Financial Literacy 101. The videos in this project aim to empower the community with basic financial literacy knowledge. Introduce some simple steps to head start handling money matters.
I also attended several powerful webinars such as Adobe MAX Webinars and WebFest Asia this month.
NOV & DEC 2020: LEARNING NEW SKILL – DIGITAL MARKETING & DATA ANALYTICS
Like history tells us, pandemics come in waves. The third wave of COVID-19 escalated in November when daily cases were near 1000 or more. We see the total cases recorded in Malaysia exceed 100,000 before the end of the year.
Amid the uncertainty ahead, I embarked on the journey to learn a new skill – Digital Marketing & Data Analytics with visualization.
Prior to the pandemic, I would not have time to fly here and there to attend those classes and conferences. Reflecting back, I have the virus to thank for. I would not have done those workshops in two months.
The most thought-provoking and informative workshops are:
- Step-Up Social Media Marketing & Communications and Step-Up Digital Marketing Basics by TechSprint Academy
- DATA.Kita Pulse by MDEC
- Social Media Strategy Mapping, Intro to Data Analytics, Intro to SQL and Intro to Google Analytics by General Assembly
DEC 2020: PUTTING INTO PRACTICE
Data is meaningless without context and without context, you cannot turn data into information.
We have the data in the system but we aren’t using it nor knowing how to analyse it. Learning from those basic classes, I practised with the company’s financial data and customer records. I gathered and cleaned up the data to identify the trends, new vs returning customers, GD products popularity and next trending tour packages.
I will continue to familiarize myself with the various data visualization tools. It is fascinating to check our past expectations against the actual data in the record.
At the same time, VI Vacation’s website was given a brand revamp. I finished designing the website all by myself. As of now, the marketing goal is to create brand awareness in a bigger community and promote Sabah domestic tour packages.
The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Life is full of ups and downs. Clearly, the hunger for cross-border travel remains strong, especially when many nations returned to lockdown this month. My mum was screaming “When can we go travel?” just days ago.
It is for certain most things will not return to “normal”, no matter how much we wish. Life is far from static. It would be wise to embrace change for good.
After nine months of working from home, I find my rhythm and enjoy the flexibility of this new style of life. I anticipate a new change of career in 2021. I also have the Fundamentals of Digital Marketing certification by Google Digital Garage on my 2021 bucket list.