Stay Home, Stay Healthy, Still Plan: A MILLENNIAL-LUXURY TRAVEL BLOG MonaCorona Inspires Travel Dreams during COVID-19 Quarantine

Wed Jun 3, 2020 - 3:33am GMT+0000

Throughout the crisis, Mona has encouraged the travel community to stay hopeful and continue planning perfect honeymoons and dream vacations during these uncertain times.

Los Angeles, United States – June 2, 2020 /MarketersMedia/

Mona Molayem, the millennial luxury travel blogger behind MonaCorona.com launched her travel brand years prior to the coronavirus outbreak and luckily, travel enthusiasts have been savvy enough to not conflate the virus with her brand name. Inevitably, the irony is not without the occasional joke from her Instagram followers to which she cheekily replies, “I’m finally going viral!” Pro Tip: she has heard all of the Sorkinesque puns on her decade-old pen name by now, and the namesake has had little effect on her brand other than a boost in search result hits from those who Google, “Corona” and specific destinations. More gravely, however, is that while the pandemic has overwhelmingly affected our health, global economy and our own individual livelihoods, travel bloggers and the tourism industry have been especially devastated. Throughout the crisis, Mona has encouraged the travel community to stay hopeful and continue planning perfect honeymoons and dream vacations during these uncertain times.

Countering Strange Times with Positive Vibes

It is undoubtedly a bizarre time to be anyone in the year 2020, when a trip to the grocery store is a scene lifted from the film Contagion complete with masked shoppers in gloves and corporate reminders to practice social distancing in the aisles over intercom. Meanwhile our inboxes are flooded with emails from every corporation, from Applebee’s to Bloomingdale’s regarding COVID-19 updates. Amidst the chaos, Mona works remotely out of her home in Los Angeles while the city is on mandatory lock-down. Like many millennial hustlers in the gig economy, the pandemic has impacted her significantly; her press trips and travel conferences have been canceled as far out as August, decreased web traffic to her blog has diminished ad revenue and affiliate sales, and travel bookings have been put on indefinite holds, misfortunes her peers also experience. Nevertheless, Mona persistently provides her followers with travel related posts and encourages everyone to keep looking toward the light at the end of the tunnel. She says, “For now, I am trying to remain positive by providing my audience with suggestions on how to book future travel along with tips on how to travel smarter, through recommendations such as the best travel credit cards.” Conversely, while tourism boards are offering fewer press trips, more hotels have personally reached out to her with future invitations as they prepare for bookings to boom when travel is finally safe again. All the while, Mona has used her social media platforms to spread optimism and share safety tips with her audience.

Appeasing Traveler Wanderlust during Quarantine

Staying clear of embellished travel diaries, Mona describes the aim of her travel blog as two-fold, “To inspire travel through visually showcasing destinations through my eyes, and to help travelers plan trips through what I write.” She advises her audience to plan ahead for when the pandemic eventually passes. Her helpful tips found on her Instagram (@monacorona) include, “Take advantage of the low airfares and hotel rates by booking future travel. For example: do you know that you’ll be going home during the holidays? Book your flights now. Booking policies are also more flexible than ever, so it may be a good time to book any other tentative future travel plans you have, too.” For the traveler able to open up a new credit card at this time, “Many credit cards are offering great sign-up bonuses. Open a card that’s good for travel and start accumulating points and miles by putting all of your purchases on it and paying your bills with it. A vacation booked entirely on points after this is all over sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?” and for more information about particular credit cards to consider, explore her blog and Instagram content. As a self-identified germaphobe, Mona also offers guidance on how to stay healthy while traveling. Her tips, which were written pre-pandemic, include the optimal hand sanitizers, hydrogen peroxide wipes, and virus-fighting nose swabs to purchase. She says, “Many of these products might be helpful to protect yourself against coronavirus, whether you are abroad or at home.” Hopefully borders will open up soon and once travel is safe, such precautions will be as important then as they are now, if not more so. When that time comes, however, travelers should consider destinations whose local economies have been most heavily impacted by the pandemic, so that we can help preserve them for future enjoyment. This is perhaps Mona’s most important advice.

The blogger’s request

Mona implores her followers to seek out tourist locations whose economies have most suffered. She urges, “Research destinations that are being heavily impacted because of their reliance on tourism to help their economy, and see if you’d like to start planning a trip there.” Such destinations include Aruba, Thailand, Bali, and Iceland which are all covered extensively on MonaCorona.com. Local businesses and hospitality staff at these destinations depend on tourism for their livelihoods. On her stay at the Fiji Marriott Resort Momi Bay and what made it so remarkable to her, she writes on her blog, “The warm and welcoming staff who treat you like royalty, make you feel like family, and never miss an opportunity to exclaim the island salutation, ‘bula!’” The word is the Fiji greeting like “hello!’ in English, but it literally means, “life!” It is the inter-connectivity of all things, big or small, and what we impart to one another on this earth. While the coronavirus has put an indefinite halt on travel and confined many to the far corners of our homes in social isolation, Mona encourages us to still plan for the brighter future in pursuit of that inter-connectivity. For this, too, shall pass!

Contact Info:
Name: Barrett Lyle
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Organization: BTCWires.com
Website: https://monacorona.com/

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