As the crisis grows, our hearts go out to each and every member of our community, which has been devastated by this pandemic. Much of our industry is comprised of small business owners, and we absolutely know what you are going through. Times are hard, but we’ve made a list of what YOU can be working on right now, as we all wait out this crisis.

Join our #coronavirus discussion on GastroTerra. At times of need like this, stakeholders turn to their communities for support and guidance. How do we survive this crisis? What should we be doing? Is now the right time to promote our business or destination? Probably no one reading this has ever experienced a pandemic like the one we are facing today. We’re all learning – and coping – together. We’ve galvanized our online GastroTerra community around this subject. You can ask your questions, and share your strategies, inside our own community. Join free today.

Join our upcoming Town Hall meeting on Tuesday, March 31 entitled Crisis Communications during the Pandemic. It’s focused specifically on what our industry stakeholders – small businesses, destinations and organizations – should be doing and saying right now. Normally, our Town Hall meetings are for premium members only, but we’re opening up this month’s meeting free of charge to all our GastroTerra members. Log in now to find out how to join the Town Hall.

Do you run a food tour business? Read what 5 culinary tour operators are doing to cope.

Do you work for a destination? Read what 5 destinations around the world are doing to cope.

Food … it brings us together. Read our letter to our industry.

Listen to our local ambassadors, who are sharing real-time input from their communities with us. Don’t know who our Ambassador is in your area? Find yours here.

Attend our upcoming FoodTreX Online Food Travel Summit April 22-23. We’re in the process of adding a 10th session focused on coping with this crisis. We’ve extended the early bird pricing through the Summit start date. A €79 registration fee for 10 expert sessions includes access to session recordings for a year, handouts, and our delegate networking app. Learn more and register your digital seat today. Spaces limited.

Oh yeah, and we’ve tapped into our education fund to make a limited number of full and partial scholarships available to anyone who cannot afford the €79 registration for our Online Summit. You can learn more and apply here for one of the scholarships. You also have the option to donate to our scholarship fund. If you or your company would like to make a tax-deductible donation please contact us through the help center.

Need more inspiration? Read Time to Make Lemonade with 10 additional suggestions about what you can be doing right now during this slow time.

Have you thought about taking this time to reinvest in your own professional development? To handle the high demand, we have invested in improving our online learning system to be able to offer more high-quality online content to more people than ever. We’ll announce more information about that and our course catalog very soon.

Meanwhile, please take care of yourself and your loved ones.

Your World Food Travel Association Family