The Lost Year of COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the economy in various industries around the world in quite different ways. For some, it has created a boom of new business, creating record years for home improvement projects, online commerce, companies providing recreational activities and equipment, and even puzzle manufacturers, just to name a few. But for others, like the professionals in the tourism industry, our way of making a living has been completely devastated because of the lockdowns and the social distancing protocols governments have placed their citizens under to slow down the pandemic.
In Italy, it has been a disastrous year for all the colleagues with whom I have built my business over the past seven years. I feel so honored to be able to call them colleagues and have been blessed by their friendships and with their work from the start. After coming from a totally different industry – banking -- I experienced the first crash in my career in 2008 and now once again in my new career in the travel business. Starting off in the Italian tourism business wasn’t easy, but with the constant support of my colleagues, I was able to transition smoothly into the work I love.
Over this past year, I’ve witnessed so many disappointing and heartbreaking situations for so many of my friends in the travel industry and not just the professionals I work with in Italy. There is Sarah, a dear friend I watched grow up when my family vacationed in northern Michigan as we shared campsites next to each other every year. Through the years Sarah graduated from college with an undergraduate degree in Hospitality Business and received her MBA. She then established a successful career in the hotel industry. She did not know at the time the pandemic hit one year ago that it would mark the end of a 21-year journey. From banquet server to road warrior and everything in between, Sarah grew so passionate about her work over that time.
Research from the firm Tourism Economics and the U.S. Travel Association found that the travel economic footprint in the United States shrank 42 percent last year, from $2.6 trillion to $1.5 trillion, a deficit of more than $1 trillion. Sarah got caught in that massive decline and lost her position with one of the largest hoteliers in the world. Through it all Sarah kept a positive attitude, even after sending out hundreds of resumes and submitting over 200 job applications and had over 20 interviews. She finally made the decision to change careers and found an exciting position in the healthcare industry. I’m happy to know she persevered through it all and although she still grieves the loss of the life she once lived and loved in the tourism industry, she is incredibly grateful for all that she learned in those pivotal nine months she was without a job. As she puts it, “We don’t know where we will be in a year, but I choose joy and gratitude for all that I have been blessed with!”
One of my Italian colleagues had a life-changing event happen at the beginning of the pandemic. Sandra Giusti had provided our guests with wonderful city tours of Arezzo in Tuscany during the town’s jousting games and festivals. Her story is that she and her husband have been blessed with the birth of their little boy, Lorenzo, during the first strict lockdown Italy had to endure. Before the virus spread, she was prepared to be just a mum for a while and to give her job a little break, and then start working again in the summer with a lot of enthusiasm, since she adores her job as a tour guide. Then the virus and all the necessary restrictions hit. Both Sandra and her husband lost all their booked tours (they both work as tour guides and tour leaders) and they started looking at their future with some worries since their baby was expected in a few days.
Then Lorenzo was born, and he was well and healthy! She says, “He made us so happy, and we felt we had been blessed with him. What was sad was that neither our parents, nor siblings, nor friends could see Lorenzo until he was two months old, and I couldn't have my mum close to me after childbirth.” Sandra went on to express, “Lorenzo had his first birthday and again we could not see our relatives because of the new restrictions, and I felt sad that, after a year, we still could not let him live a normal life. He just saw loved ones with their masks on and his grandparents could not even kiss him once. But we have to be grateful about everything and we don't want to complain since we're fine and we're not living under the bombs or as refugees.”
The couple was able to find a little work until Christmas; Sandra worked as shop assistant in a beautiful toy store, and it was an amazing experience for her. Unfortunately, the position had to be eliminated due to the new restrictions and to the store’s economic troubles. The couple is optimistic about the future and has been working on planning new tours (even if they don't know when they will start again).
Cristina Amberti is also a tour guide in Tuscany and has provided my company’s groups with tours of Siena since the beginning. In 2019, she had received many walking-tour bookings and was busy from spring until late fall, including November. Both new and repeat clients were planning to spend days in Tuscany in 2020 which included tours of Siena as the highlight of their trips. Her agenda was full of confirmations and 2020 was going to be one of her best years ever. After the winter break, March is usually the start of the tourist season, but last year March designed a different plan for everybody.
Cristina lives in the Tuscan countryside where she spent her newfound free time on several outbuildings spread around her house, that were filled with many kinds of objects she collected through the years. Books, magazines, paintings, pieces of furniture, clothes, objects from her children’s childhood all had to be sorted and with the help of her husband they removed a great deal of unnecessary stuff. One of those emptied outbuildings was turned into a gym, which they were able to utilize during the lockdowns. Cristina said, “Needless to say, I have exercised, cooked, read books and watched films more than usual.”
Cristina took pleasure in nature, taking care of the many flowers, bushes, and trees that they had planted through the years. The landscape received extra care during the pandemic year. Some of the plants in Cristina’s garden consist of roses, wisteria, and jasmine.
Cristina explained, “In Tuscany roses bloom from April to May depending on the type. Yellow ones are climbing roses or landscape roses and are the first ones to bloom, but the blooming doesn’t last for a long time. They are great for two weeks and then nothing until next year, a kind of supreme symbolism of the idea of garden. In Medieval culture, the garden was the allegory of life because it was: closed, artificial and ephemeral.”
Cristina’s red roses are Seville roses and are produced by Meilland in France. They have won the ADR German prize as the most resistant roses, which is helpful during the cold winter months in Tuscany.
The white flowers in her garden are Aspirin roses commissioned by the Bayer Pharmaceutics Company to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the aspirin and now gardeners go crazy with it because they are very decorative. Cristina went on to say, “The color is incredibly elegant and turns from light rose to white. They belong to the family ground cover roses.”
Cristina gives a fair warning about wisteria, “Be careful where you plant it, because its roots are devastating. They are so strong and able to damage pipes and buildings’ foundations. If your Zodiac sign is Pisces, it’s your plant. It helps you to be more rooted to the earth.”
The type of Jasmine in Cristina’s garden is Trachelospermum jasminoides. Cristina explains “It’s an evergreen whose flowers bloom until June/July and their scent is unforgettable. My garden must be nice looking but also full of perfumes.”
From the summer until mid-October, Italians could travel within the country’s boundaries and wonderful Siena was happily invaded by visitors. Working with Italians instead of English or French speaking travelers was a great experience for her. Cristina delightfully stated, “I even had the chance to lead tours for Sienese and Tuscans; some of them decided to know in depth their region or city for the first time.”
I was fortunate to have Cristina as a guest presenter for some of the virtual classes she and I provided over the past year with some of the schools I’ve taught at before. Since I could no longer teach in person, I had to develop virtual classes and utilize many of the guides I’ve worked with through the years. One class was about the pilgrimage in Tuscany, and virtual guests found it fascinating learning about all the little towns along the way to Rome.
Concetta “Cetty” Spoto is a special tour guide in Palermo, Sicily who I’ve been working with for the past five years. COVID-19 has changed many things in the lives of all the Sicilians, but obviously it has changed the lives of those who worked in tourism much more. Cetty was also on the heels of her best year ever since starting her tour guide business over 20 years ago. The pandemic has turned her life upside down. The lockdowns have made it difficult to live day-to-day life, but she tried to keep her mind busy. Cetty has teamed up with me to create informative classes about Sicily.
Although she can’t take people around her city and other sites in Sicily in person, she has found a way to help people travel using their imagination. She wants to organize lessons that help make her island more known. One of my favorite programs is titled, “Discover the Splendors of Norman Sicilian Golden Age.” It is filled with so many of Sicily’s treasures left behind by the Normans from around 1,090 A.D. to 1,200 A.D., many of them have been given UNESCO World Heritage designations.
It was the isolation and inactivity that sparked a new source of creativity for Chiara Rozzi, a 25-year, tour-guide specialist in Taormina, Sicily. Chiara’s story defines what happens with a productive person who is forced to stop doing what she is so passionate about. The following is Chiara’s COVID-19 story in her own words:
…for me the missed season was supposed to be the most incredible and busiest of my career, (that started in 1987 and until the beginning of March, 2020). I was wondering how I could succeed in accomplishing all the work I accepted. And almost suddenly all this ferment simply stopped.
At the very beginning of the pandemic, I was convinced this had to be just for a short while. Never and never, could I imagine that the governments of the whole world could decide and even more incredibly, succeed to close people inside and for such a long time! I still wonder if this really helped to contain the pandemic and if the costs in terms of economy and collective fear was worthwhile.
Anyway, the first period of lockdown I accepted the situation as it was, despite my disbelief. Staying closed at home was not that bad because, fortunately, I live in an isolated house in the countryside. So that I could enjoy the plants and trees blossoming in my garden and all around, I started to put them in colored compositions on my kitchen table. I also shared this beauty sending photos of them with WhatsApp to bring hope to my friends.
I brought this idea from India, the last journey I did in January with a friend. Outside spring was flourishing and our lives inside were frozen like in a nightmare.
Reading again books such as The Plague by Camus (!!!), Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. Putting order, at last, in my documents, papers, and drawers. Rediscovering forgotten memories, throwing away a lot of old and un-useful things, cleaning, cooking, getting fat (sigh!!!), regularly taking vitamin D and magnesium, meditating, gardening, attending yoga lessons online, getting massages from my expert daughter, watching movies and serials on Netflix (Suits, my favorite...! 9 seasons...!!!) and any kind of funny stories in YouTube, and above all AVOIDING NEWS! Just once a day I’d check the situation of hospitals and realized the problems were not enough beds and healthcare staff and not knowing how to manage this disease. Otherwise, the percentages of ill people compared to the population were objectively not as terrible as the medias wanted to let us think.
Technology helped me stay in contact with my friends through video calling. Some friends were much more alone than me; at least my youngest daughter, 24 years old, still lives with me. My eldest one works in Germany.
Some colleagues of mine were so smart and resilient that they were able to recycle themselves working with virtual tours all the time. I felt inadequate in that regard. However, I did turn a short promotional video and put it in my website.
Summer arrived, and they seemed to reopen again. Almost no work for me, apart from a couple of walking tours in Taormina with Italians, French, and Germans. Was I still able to do my job? Apparently, yes, but did I still feel like doing it? No answer! Better to go to beach, biking at dawn and coming back at 9:30 a.m. before it was too hot, or late in the evening before sunset. Things that I haven't done in decades -- no time for such pleasure before.
Then Autumn arrived, no auspices of work, just cancellations. Money reserves were dwindling...
So, how to pass another winter without becoming crazy? Chiara, you must find out an Option B! OK, let's start painting watercolors. And there I was, improving my artistic techniques since October, distributing my works as presents among my friends. If I concentrate my mind on drawing and painting, I don't waste time thinking nonsense and being worried. Just here and now.
But how long can I last with this pandemic? Sometimes it's difficult not to feel lonely, not having physical contact with people for such a long time. We are human beings depending on one another’s touch. During the bombing from the war, everyone at least could cling together and later they supported each other by rebuilding the destroyed towns. Unlike those times, this pandemic has separated people and new psychological discomforts are already appearing on the horizon.
So, one year passed by and it's spring again, we should take stock of the situation. But how long will this last?
Like Chiara, I too miss the touch and embrace of my friends and family in Italy. I adore how Italians kiss each cheek of the person they greet, male or female. A simple gesture of love for the people in their lives, and it is almost a year since I’ve been able to do just that. In Tuscany, I miss the quiet, beauty-filled walks I would take in the vineyard and hiking up to my friend Candida’s house for coffee as my guests toured for the day. Or walking up the mountain to my cousin Vita’s summer villa in Sicily and helping myself to a fig or two from a roadside tree along the way. The food, the wine and the sights are all the obvious things one would miss about Italy, but for me what I miss the most are the smiles on my friends and family member’s faces as we embrace after a long absence.
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