No industry has been harder hit from the global crisis than tourism and travel. Hotels have been shuttered, cruise ships stranded, and amusement parks closed.
Regions that rely on tourism and its close companion, travel, have been particularly impacted. For instance, Italy is expected to lose approximately 4.7 million international tourist arrivals in 2020, according to Statista Research.
Those with hard assets like hotels and cruise ships are likely to embark on lengthy restructuring and insolvency processes. With luck, government assistance and lots of hard work, these businesses will weather the restructuring storm, though likely with new owners.
Datasite supported 9,000+ transactions of all shapes and sizes in all industries last year. We have 25 years of experience working with the restructuring and bankruptcy community .
Based on that experience, here are some practical tips companies in the travel and tourism industry should take now.
Create an emergency repository
Organizing business-critical documents always takes longer than expected- the tourism and travel average is about a month. You may not know what specific events are headed your way, but you do know some of the critical documents you'll need to share with lenders, creditors and government bodies alike.
That’s why it’s important to start gathering and updating the documents you need immediately. Don't wait for the dust to settle to start your prep work.
We recommend setting your repository up on our exit readiness app, Datasite Prepare. That way, you can rely on our ironclad security to keep confidential processes private while taking advantage of our AI tools like auto-categorization to speed set-up.
Think like a project manager
Set yourself up for success from the beginning by thinking about how to manage workflow at scale. You can expect hundreds of experts to review tens of thousands of documents. Hence, do you have the right help? Who or what tools do you need to manage the chaos in the most professional and efficient way possible?
For instance, Datasite assigns a dedicated project manager for any of its apps to help your team and you manage the data room, Datasite Diligence, through every transaction. That kind of specialized assistance becomes critical in fraught situations like fire sales where professionals are juggling so many moving parts.
Finally, for industries like tourism and travel likely to be engaged in multiple hard asset sales, our Datasite Outreach tool can help you shop each asset efficiently and to hundreds of buyers at a time. That kind of technology can be a game-changer, especially when you’re competing with multiple sellers at the same time. In those cases, professionalism and efficiency make all the difference.
That's why, when you plan to restructure, use Datasite with foresight.