commercially reasonable terms, or at all, especially due to volatile market conditions. If additional financing is not available when required or is not available on acceptable terms, we may be unable to fund our strategic objectives, meet our payroll obligations, successfully promote our brand, develop or enhance our products and services, take advantage of business opportunities, or respond to competitive pressures, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business. If we choose to raise funds through the issuance of equity securities, existing stockholders may experience dilution of their ownership interests and holders of the additional equity securities may have rights senior to existing stockholders of our common stock. If we obtain additional financing through debt securities, the terms of these arrangements could restrict or prevent us from paying dividends, could require the pledging of assets, could subject the Company to restrictive covenants or large fees, and could limit our flexibility.
Utilization of governmental stimulus packages may negatively impact our business, operations and/or reputation.
Certain governments have passed legislation to help businesses through the COVID-19 pandemic with loans, wage subsidies, tax relief or other financial aid. We are participating in, or have applied to participate in, several government programs, including but not limited to, the programs offered in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, and certain other jurisdictions. To the extent we do receive any assistance (in the form of government sponsored or private loans), we may be required to agree to certain restrictions, including but not limited to negative covenants, which could impact how we operate and negatively impact the business, as well as result in higher financing costs. Our reputation could also be harmed.
Our business may be sensitive to recessions or events effecting the travel industry generally.
The demand for online advertising may be linked to the level of economic activity and employment in the U.S. and abroad. Specifically, our business is primarily dependent on the demand for online advertising from travel and entertainment companies. Events like Middle East conflicts, terrorist attacks, mass shooting incidents, natural disasters, and travel-related health events, such as the pandemic, have a negative impact on the travel industry and affect travelers’ behavior by limiting their ability or willingness to visit certain locations. In addition, advertisers may choose to limit advertising spend on certain destinations, which can adversely impact our business. We are not in a position to evaluate the net effect of these circumstances as these events are largely unpredictable; however, we believe there has been negative impact to our business by such events. In the longer term, our business might be negatively affected by financial pressures on or changes to the travel industry.
Our operations could be significantly hindered by the occurrence of a natural disaster or other catastrophic event.
Our operations are susceptible to outages due to fire, floods, power loss, telecommunications failures, and unexpected technical problems in the systems that power our websites and distribute our email newsletters, break-ins and similar events. Outages could cause significant interruptions of our service. In addition, despite our implementation of network security measures, and although we have moved most of our IT operations to the cloud, our servers are vulnerable to computer viruses, physical and electronic break-ins, and similar disruptions from unauthorized tampering with our systems. We do not carry business interruption insurance to compensate us for losses that may occur as a result of any of these events.
We are subject to payments-related and fraud risks.
We accept payments for the sale of vouchers using a variety of methods, including credit cards and debit cards. We pay interchange and other fees, which may increase over time, raise our operating expenses, and lower profitability. We rely on third parties to provide payment processing services and it could disrupt our business if these companies become unwilling or unable to provide these services to us. Because the global pandemic has increased the risk profile of travel-related companies, such payment processing services may require larger deposits, impose stricter rules or requirements, or may decide to stop working with companies related to the travel industry altogether. For example, Travelzoo was required to change processors in certain jurisdictions in 2021 because its previous processor decided to stop working with companies related to the travel industry. If we are unable to pivot to a new payment processor quickly, this could lead to periods of time where we are unable to accept or process payments from our members, impacting our ability to generate revenue. We are also subject to payment card association operating rules, certification requirements and rules governing electronic funds