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20
Jun 2020
Last Updated: 20/06/2020
Column: Travel agents had unfair bad press in pandemic
The Managing Director of Spear Travels in Boroughbridge writes for The Stray Ferret and says it's been an extremely difficult period for people who booked holidays, his staff and his business
This column is written by Peter Cookson, Managing Director of Spear Travels. Spear Travels is a group of twelve independent travel agencies based in Boroughbridge extending from North Yorkshire to Dorset:
The travel industry, like practically every other business in the UK, has been going through hell the past three or so months. But in the travel industry we have had the added intensity of being scrutinised and put in the stocks and pilloried on a daily basis by the press and media regarding refunds. This is for the most part fair in the case of tour operators and airlines, but mostly unfair, in the case of travel agencies like mine.
The general consensus of public opinion is that we, as travel agents, are just holding on to clients’ monies and refusing to pay them back for the sake of our personal cashflow. This is very far from the truth. We cannot pay back what the tour operators or airlines have not given back to us first.
We started to feel the impact of C-19 on both existing bookings and new enquiries in mid-February and I was in Singapore at the time visiting family. In that country even then, they were well ahead of the game with regards to tracing outbreaks back to the source.
As soon as C-19 started to bite in the UK in March, understandably staying safe became far more important than holidays. We had numerous people who were trapped abroad all round the world and who took weeks to return in some cases. Some elected to stay put as it was safer where they were. Some are still there now!
We have spent all of our time in the past three months either trying to repatriate clients or sort out their refunds. This is hugely time-consuming which meant that, unlike other industries, we could not furlough all of our staff (currently about 60% are furloughed). So no income coming in but still having to bear a fair proportion of our overhead costs.
Thanks to furlough pay, CBILS (Government’s Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme), business grants and free rents from most of our understanding landlords for the June quarter, we have kept going. We will come out the other side. After nearly 30 years in this industry, we are not giving up!
Bookings for later this year and 2021 and 2022 are starting to come back, which is great. This is mostly long haul and cruise, with Canada doing especially well. Our range of holidays includes everything you can imagine from tailor-made travel to family beach holidays and holidays, in the UK are proving popular too.
Our market research shows that once things return to the new ‘normal’, hopefully by mid-July, there will be a huge upsurge of people wanting a summer break, me included! Our Yorkshire branches will reopen in the next few weeks. The appetite for travel is back!
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