Being a Travel Agent through COVID-19 Pandemic
Never in my Travel career did I think that a Pandemic such as COVID-19 could decimate an Industry like it has done to the Travel Industry. But here we are over 18 Months since we found out what COVID was & it stopped the world in its tracks.
I am very proud to be one of the estimated 2500 - 3000 Travel Agents left, still operating in Australia. Prior to COVID there were around 25,000 Travel Agents in Australia. Let those numbers sink in! Over 20,000 Travel Agencies have had to close down due to COVID & the downturn in the Travel Industry.
So why am I still here?? Well I believe that it is resilience & the relationship I have with my clients. It's also down to a decision I made in 2018 to take a chance & go out on my own & join Mobile Travel Agents (MTA). Travel is my passion!
I was celebrating MTA's 20 years of operation on the Gold Coast in Feb 2020 & within a week of returning home I was head deep in doing what I had to do for my clients. My first priority was getting my clients home from overseas, then cancelling departures that were within the next month & rebooking around 260 of my client’s holidays. It was heartbreaking to say the least. There were tears (me & my clients), hours on the phone, hours on hold, thousands of emails between airlines, suppliers, wholesalers, tour operators. Daily monitoring of ever-changing policies to read from every supplier in the Industry. Initially no one knew how this was going to pan out. Would it just throw us into chaos for a few weeks or months, like we had seen with SARS or the Bird flu. I initially thought Asia will go quiet until this settles down, like it had done in the past, but then Italy shut its borders & then the whole of Europe, The USA & it was a domino effect for every single country in the World.
It got to June & it became apparent that the clients who had rebooked their holidays for the second half of the year were not going to be able to travel either, so the cancellations continued.
I had no income since March & I had handed back all my commission to my clients when processing their refunds. This was my choice to do this. There was so much bad press about Travel Agents keeping clients money & I just didn’t want to be one of 'those' agents. I run my business in a small country town & I just didn’t want any negative feedback about how I handled my clients cancellations, refunds & credits. I can honestly say that I have got back as much money for all of my clients that I could have through negotiations & waiting until the right time for a change in policies. Those that I couldn’t get refunds for I negotiated generous credits with extra financial benefits for clients willing to take a credit over loosing thousands in cancellation fees from the suppliers.
I am also fortunate that I am a one man show & I didn’t employ staff, that I had to try & keep in a job. Working from home is a huge benefit. I didn’t have to worry about where the rent payments were coming from or packing up an office & adapting to working from home, I had already been doing that for 2 years.
My clients have been amazing, patient & understanding. Some of these refunds took over 6 months to come back. When a client books a holiday & pays me, I forward their funds to the supplier for the services they have booked. It's not a matter of me refunding the client straight away from my account, as I don’t have the funds sitting there. I had to get it back from the supplier, most of which were not in Australia. 95% of my business is International Travel.
So, for now with the vaccines rolling out, I feel like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel & International Travel is not too far away. Whether Travellers confidence will be there to start with, I don’t know. But I do have a list of about 20 clients who want me to call them the minute the Australian state borders open back up to Victoria. They JUST WANT A HOLIDAY. They are vaccinated & are willing to jump on a plane tomorrow.
So if you don’t normally book with a Travel Agent maybe consider doing so for your next holiday. International Travel won’t be as simple as just boarding a plane. There will be specific & different rules & requirements for different countries. You might just need a professional to guide you through & take the stress out of all of this. Someone to call if things don’t go to plan, someone to be on the phone on your behalf to the airline to change your flights or find you an extra night’s hotel accommodation.
I can guarantee that any Travel Agent still left standing that has ridden out this storm will be worth booking with......
Yours in Travel,
Renee x