Housekeeping

As the world begins to open, I find this is very much like rebuilding a house after a hurricane. The structure is only as good as the foundation. So now is the time for us to share some tools for our advisor partners in order to rebuild with a solid foundation. Part of any good foundation is having a vision of what that house will look like.

We recently posted a letter entitled Our Work is Not Done because, frankly, it never is. In it, we share the vision for Big Five as we navigate towards the future, showcasing examples of our commitment to humanizing the soul yesterday, today, tomorrow.

Another aspect of this foundation is sharing the schematic blueprint with you, our advisor partners. I admit that I am not a contractor as you can plainly tell (so let the jokes begin and make them good). But below are links to four housekeeping documents to help your partnership with Big Five have the same level of assurance as that well-built house. These include our updated terms – Big Five Coronavirus Update – with guidance consistent with earlier posts in March. Another document is about our corporate hygiene procedures addressing the steps we have taken in our company. This also works well with hygiene protocols now coming out of the various countries we operate in.

We will be resuming our mailings later this year once a disinfectant UV light arrives that all documents will be passed through before being sent out to our agency partners. You can imagine the look on the retailer’s face when we shopped for this. Most thought we were getting ready to throw a rave, until we explained what it was for. The specific model we ordered turns off automatically when it is turned towards the user to ensure safe use.

We already had careful procedures in place to ensure clean vehicles and well-groomed personnel every day, so for us, this is second nature. One thing you will see missing from this is hand sanitizer bottles handed to guests in their packet. You see, over the last few years and especially in 2019, and the beginning for 2020, we were making great strides in eliminating all single use plastics from our operation, and that goal is not being cast aside. Handing out plastic bottles of sanitizer goes against our mission of plastic reduction and goes against the work already done. Besides, we know our guests all have their preferred sanitizer they travel with.

The other two documents on this page, which complete the foundation our partnership is built on, are likely the most powerful. The first is our No Gimmicks letter many of you have seen, which essentially restates our position from day one 47 years go. Pay us the deposit when you are ready, and understand where that money goes. The other is a trust document, Big Five Financial Stability, I am especially proud of and I want to thank the various travel advisors that helped us shape this. Your input was so valuable. This document spells out our financial stability in a user-friendly document that advisers can combine with the No Gimmicks explanation on deposits and share with clients. Both documents are loaded on to the Axus Travel App in the public library for advisors to share with their clients.

We want advisors to book their clients with confidence. We believe in partnerships with our advisor community and chose this time to strengthen that.

Speaking of our work not being done, you will see a link both in this blog and also on Vimeo with a zoom invite for a very different kind of event on June 5th. We talk about the power of tourism to support communities, and, last week, we decided to have a virtual ride along to show those philanthropic efforts as they happen in the remote communities around Cartagena. Cartagena Unida was established as a movement made up of people who decided to get together, regardless of social status to focus on helping those less privileged, and without a voice, delivering food, medical supplies, and necessary aid to the most impoverished of communities. As the son of the mayor of Cartagena, Abraham Dau, a local business owner is using those connections to do great work. We want you to ride along on one of those journeys to experience, live, the great work Abraham and his team are doing on ground.

The response was overwhelmingly positive, so we decided to start this ride along on a regular basis. Sign up below to join Abraham and I, and experience compassion in action.

So, remember, stay positive and keep flying.

Ashish Sanghrajka
President

Our work is not done

Big Five Coronavirus Update

No Gimmicks

Big Five Financial Stability