Half the world is in lockdown. The skies are empty. Travelling for fun now seems like an impossible prospect to most of us. And if you did still want to get away, you would be hard pressed to find normal air routes still operating, hotels or borders still open or insurance to cover your trip. Governments all over the world have been racing to repatriate their citizens. The European Union alone has brought back more than 350,000 people on rescue flights, but an estimated 200,000 are still stuck overseas. Ive lost count now of how many flights ive tried to book. Were just desperate now to get anything, but money is running short because were booking things, nothings going through, everything gets cancelled and were not getting any money back. We looked at any place in europe, basically, to get out. But theres no flights, theres no flights. Were scrabbling about to try and get other flights. We managed to get one from seoul, korea, to heathrow. Thats cost us a further £1,500 apiece, so thats five grand weve paid to get back now. Weve just been abandoned, basically. It is every day more difficult because airlines have grounded their planes and every day more places are closed, perhaps being impossible to use. The transfers are more difficult. But i think that, little by little, all of them will go back home. But perhaps the biggest headache facing aviation, and many of us, is the issue of refunds, from airlines who, with most or all of their flights grounded, have already lost a huge chunk of their income. Claimants are being faced with unanswered e mails and long waits on the phone as airline call centres struggle to cope. It seems like a long way off, but this will all be over one day and the worlds tourism bosses are already thinking about how to rebuild their industry from the fallout of the current crisis. First, what i think people will do is to start to travel because of business meetings, leisure, postponed travel and trips, which are millions worldwide. Of course, there will be some changes in the market, changes in mentality. Im joined now by the travel shows resident global guru, simon calder. We spoke three weeks ago, but what do you think about the way things have developed since then . In order to look forward, its helpful to look back and just going back three weekends, which feels in this pandemic like 100 years, we were living in a different world. Most International Airlines and hotels were working normally. Yes, they had far fewer customers, but at least you could travel and stay in places. It was pretty much that weekend we saw this great surge of International Flight bans and then individual country saying they didnt want people from particular nationalities. By now, pretty much everywhere on the planet is in some kind of lockdown and the idea of travelling for pleasure seems, right now, preposterous. We heard from the un wto there talk about the future and recovery, but how will International Travel start to rebuild, in your view . So, you will need individual countries to allow you and i to go for a coffee, or indeed to go an international airport. Then the destination country needs to be prepared to accept visitors. Of course, that is all tied in with the trajectory of the coronavirus and some countries will say, actually, we will give it a couple of months. Others will say, no, we are desperate, our entire economy depends on tourism, so we could have something of a bidding war even breaking out in the mediterranean. Ive taken soundings from dozens of people across the planets and the senses that we will see, injune, Something Like normal travel beginning again, but it will be on a small scale and, even if there are huge amounts of pent up demand from you and i desperate to travel, it wont be anything like the normal summer that we would be looking forward to at this time. Simon, for now, thanks. As you can imagine, we have been inundated with questions from people all over the world who have had to change their travel plans. We will go through some of those later on. But first, more on how the travel industry is trying to cope with this seismic shift. Benidorm, usually a buzzing spanish coastal getaway for holiday makers from across europe. Now, for one of its top hoteliers, its a very different story. At any one day during high season, he will often have 8,000 guests spread across his 11 hotels and resorts. Today, there are none. Our business is a family business. My was the founder when he was 30 years old. Now he is 82 and he is still working hard. It is a passion for all of ourfamily. We were growing nearly 20 year on year. In only five days, really, everything changed and now all of our hotels have closed down. Our employees have gone home and we are experiencing a vast economic impact. We are still receiving new bookings, so we have hope. The kind of pressures that hoteliers like javier are facing are being seen all over the world. In the maldives, with its picture perfect resorts, tourism has come to make up more than a quarter of its income. It has faced relatively few confirmed cases of covid i9, less than two dozen, but were still quick to cancel all visa on arrivals for travellers coming into the country. Earlier this year, ade filmed a story about coral conservation at the anantara resort there. Just over a week ago, the last guest left anantara and its three sister resorts, but they are still optimistic about the future. We are planning for the future. That means we are constantly starting to renovate, refurbish things. We are expecting that everything will go back to normal here in the maldives approximately at the end ofjune, when we are expecting tourists to come to the maldives in a big volume again. So how is this crisis affecting what has long been at the heart of the travel industry the traditional package holiday . In the uk, the association of British Travel agents has been monitoring events closely. Can you tell me, first of all, what is the situation currently with your members . It is pretty desperate out there. It is a combination of two things. Number one, forward bookings for sales have really dried up. Secondly, there is a situation where, basically, you are getting tens of thousands of holidays being cancelled or customers seeking refunds for those holidays. Many of them have put their own staff on furlough already. Again, they have a challenge there because a lot of travel companies have been working on bringing customers back home or sorting out the situation around refunds, but its very difficult. So morale is obviously not great. Do they think that they can survive this storm . Do they think they will be ok . The travel industry is typically really resilient. It is used to dealing with crises. It has dealt with everything from terrorism incidents to tsunamis to volcanic ash clouds. The industry is used to dealing with issues at destinations. The difference here is just the scale of it and the immediacy of it. We need to try and make sure that whatever we are doing now is thinking about the future, as well. Whether thats the future in another five or six months, or whether its the future several years down the line that we still have a Tourism Industry there at the end of all of this. I think what were seeing in other countries around europe, in germany, spain, the netherlands, italy, they are all taking measures and theyre all stepping in with measures, particularly around this issue of refunds to try and ensure that Consumer Protections are still in place, customers still maintain their right to a refund, but that businesses are given a bit more time in order to give those refunds. I think that is what we need to see happen here in the uk, as well. So, simon, i think the basic message there from abta is that if we all try and get our refunds now, the package Tourism Industry will crash. Is that true . Certainly, if you have a Good Relationship with your travel firm and are prepared to give them a bit of time to refund you, then that is probably a smart move in the long run, but it also draws attention to the fact that, actually, travel companies have an interesting Business Model where the money you pay for your holiday in six months time is used to pay the bills for my holiday departing now. Its mike of the bbc travel show. As you can imagine, were taking a little pause right now due to the circumstances. I am back in canada. As you can see, i still havent really left the travel lifestyle behind completely, but i will be here for the next four or five months, which is a very big life change for me. I havent been in one spot for probably half a decade. I have been able to speak to some friends and since a lot of us have Youtube Travel channels or instagram pages, there are a lot of interesting stories about how we have had some problems. My friends eamon and bec, a canadian couple, had just brought their van from the americas over to morocco only to have to abandon the van in africa. Things escalated really quickly in morocco. One week earlier nobody one was even speaking about the coronavirus, it wasnt something that was even on our radar. Within a 48 hour period, the borders were closed, our friends who had come to visit were stuck there with us. Military in the street shouting corona, corona . It was a very difficult decision, we had our home, our investment, our business, everything was us travelling the world, so we needed to make a decision on listening to the government advising us to come home and ditching ourvan, and thats the decision that we made. This is not easy, but i think we are as prepared as were going to be. My immediate hope for the end of this crisis is to get on a plane and get back to our van in morocco. I have a pretty interesting story myself. I was on the island of socotra, which is right here on the map, right in the middle. It is this beautifuljewel in the indian ocean, filled with endemic species that are only found there, kind of like galapagos or madagascar. Funny story, my girlfriend is still on that island hi there, im eva zubeck and im a travel vlogger. I am stuck on Socotra Island in yemen. Of course, this has hugely affected all of my travel plans, however, luckily, because we are in such an isolated spot, there is no coronavirus on the island and we are able to roam around freely, there is no quarantine and no curfew. So ive been trying to keep myself busy. Sleeping under the stars, hiking around and just trying to enjoy the situation that im kind of stuck in. 0k. And thats it, thats how i speak to my girlfriend in times like this like many other people, im facing the prospect of months stuck at home, but rather than resign myself to it, ive been looking at ways i can travel the globe from the comfort of my own home. If you are looking for a high end transportive experience, Virtual Reality headsets have been offering users immersive 360 degrees experiences for quite some time now. Using an 0culus rift, for example, you can head to its website and purchase vr tours of pompeii and chernobyl. Having tried a few of them, its striking how lifelike the visual recreations often are. What it cant capture is the Actual Experience of being there, plus its not cheap. One of the big headsets like the playstation vr or the htc vibe will set you back hundreds of pounds. If you want to save that money for an actual holiday, then i would recommend looking at youtube and this absolutely brilliant account from a user called rambalac based in japan. Rambalac posts 4k quality videos of walks around cities and landmarks, and thats it. No commentary, nobody talking to you, just long unbroken shots and natural sounds. If you can settle into its rhythm, it is weirdly absorbing and relaxing too. If its the nightlife youre missing, you can always get a taste of berlins Legendary Club scene. United we stream is offering live streamed sets from some of the citys hottest djs, as well as live music performances and documentaries about the club culture. Its all for a good cause too. If you buy a virtual club ticket, the money will go into a relief fund supporting the citys night time institutions and their thousands of employees. And if you have a stay at home travel suggestion, get in touch with me on the travel shows facebook, instagram and twitter accounts. Now, in morocco, all flights in and out of the country have been suspended and those inside are under lockdown. You may remember, last year ade went to the jarjeer mule and donkey refuge in the foothills of the atlas mountains. Working animals are relied upon heavily there and are often discarded when they are too old to work. Places like these are few and far between. Hi, welcome to jarjeer. Tell me, how have you been coping . How is it going . If im honest, its been a bit scary. We knew as soon as the virus was becoming a pandemic that we would have to change things here and we stopped all visits. Now, of course, we are in lockdown. At the moment, i have quite a lot of very good supporters around the world, so we are still able to pay the staff, feed the donkeys, which is an absolute priority. If so many people lose theirjobs abroad, we are clearly not going to have to have donations, so if things got really bad we could be facing having to sell up, but were all determined that wont happen. Can you make appeals on social media or on your platforms for more funds to come in . What we do is a broadcast each day on social media. That way we have managed to keep the donations coming in. We employ people from the village. We buy £1,000 worth of food a week. If all that collapses, the village is going to suffer, so its notjust about donkeys. Donkey brays. By the sounds of it, susan, at least one of your donkeys is in fine fettle we wish you all the best of luck. Thank you very much. Last 0ctober, lucy travelled to the Volcanoes National park in rwanda to see the famous gorillas. The park is one of the few places in the world where the population of apes is rising, due to increased conservation efforts. This has meant a boost in tourism, driven by the desire to see these majestic animals. But now, this stream of income has dried up. With the current situation, it is very tough. There is a restriction, what is called stay home, but it is a mountain gorilla that is used to humans, so if you lose one day monitoring, it means Something Else can happen, like trauma or snares or sickness. Obviously, you rely partly, at least, on tourists coming in and that money has disappeared. How is that affecting you . Well, the money has disappeared, yes, and tourism has been used as a very significant tool towards conservation. This population of mountain gorillas, they are always between a highly dense population of humans, so it means any financial crisis these people are likely to go back and start and do the poaching. What i am predicting is that these organisations and host countries governments will need to make more sacrifices to consider conservation as part of their major agenda of things to fix. What would you say to people who are watching right now at home and perhaps want to help you . If you have some money, keep donating. If you dont, just keep advocating for these animals. We all need to help each other, talk every time and then find solutions. Lastly, we are speaking to an Animal Rehabilitation Centre deep in the amazonian rainforest. Merazonia looks after more than 200 rescued animals. When local authorities find illegal pets, they take them there in the hope that one day they can be released back into the wild. When the crisis started to really hit ecuador, we had full volunteers. Since then, we have had a lot of the families of certain volunteers wanting to go home, of course. We have endeavoured to try and get them home, which weve succeeded in, but thats left us with a real skeleton staff, really. There is a lot more work for everybody just to try and get the basics done. I think if we lost any more people then we would be starting to really struggle. Yeah, its something we have been thinking about and planning for, but hopefully not having to deal with. The local supermarket has been giving us donations of food, which has been massively helpful financially. Would you ever now turn an animal awayjust because you couldnt cope . We havent received as many animals as we would do normally because of the travel restrictions. There are a few arrivals of animals still coming in. We had a baby sloth this week. I think within our little world, the animals will always come first. It is important to realise, simon, how dependent projects like those are all around the world on people like us. 0ne hope i have is that, just as societies have become more attuned to the needs of other people, as travellers we might be more focused on the Host Community and the planet itself when we come to spend our money. Travelling responsibly. Yes. Time now for some more quick fire questions from viewers. What can someone do if theyre worried the travel agency or company is not answering their phone calls or e mails . What are their next moves . Lots of companies are in lockdown at the moment. Their staff are working from home with just a laptop and a mobile phone. I have to say, give it time. If you are not booked to travel imminently, then just ease off for a while. If you have paid the deposit, should you pay the rest of the booking if you fear you could lose your money . You wont lose your money if it is a proper package holiday. Keep paying. If you dont, the only guarantee is you will lose your deposit. What are the rules around package Holiday Companies only offering to rebook for another date and refusing refunds . If its a proper package holiday, the package travel regulations apply and you are due all your money back, ideally within two weeks. If you have booked your holiday on an non refundable rate, does that mean you just cannot get a refund . If the hotel wasnt open and couldnt satisfy its side of the bargain, then you can argue you are due a full refund, but if the room was there and you just couldnt get there, im afraid youll be lucky if you got a credit note. I have booked with aianb, so what are my rights . If you booked before the 14th of march and your stay is any time up to the end of may, you are due a full refund. Really useful as ever, simon. Thanks for that. Now, even though were not going anywhere anytime soon, over the coming weeks well be picking some of our favourite trips from the past for you to watch again. Lets enjoy some armchair travel, shall we, until we hit the road again . But for now, from me, rajan datar, and the travel show team, wherever you are in the world, its goodbye.