Jenny Jackson, homeworker with Blue Bay Travel, shares her views with Travel Bulletin, ahead of todays Travel Day of Action protest at Westminister
Why is ABTA's Travel Day of Action so important to you and your colleagues?
We actually feel let down by the government and certainly do not feel ABTA have achieved enough traction to highlight our plight from the start of the pandemic. Why only now are we having a Day of Action? The mental health issues within our industry are shocking as we have not had any guidance and support to make the journey through this long tunnel and left our industry drastically changed, with hundreds of thousands of casualties along the way.
How do you think the Government can support a safe return to international travel?
Last summer the government made a total mistake opening up a very small window allowing people to travel in July and August and then doing an about turn, enforcing people to return home from holiday and creating chaos at airports.
This year millions of people have had 2 vaccinations and the restrictions are worse and this is putting even more strain on our already very fragile industry. It's time for the government to appoint a Minister for Inbound & Outbound Travel who actually understands destinations and realizes there are also millions of people across the globe who rely 100% on tourism in destinations where they have just been totally abandoned.
What do you think might happen if the government doesn't intervene and provide some additional support?
The government has failed to recognize the fact that we are the ONLY industry to have refunded billions back to our clients, money clawed back from us, as well as earned nothing for over 18 months because we have been unable to sell holidays due to the constant dangling of carrots to the public: holidays are on, holidays are off- we are on our knees!
They should have closed our borders in March 2020 and if they had we would not still be in this mess. In countries that closed their borders (Mauritius, Seychelles, Australia, New Zealand, and whose borders are still closed) people are carrying on with life as normal, schools have remained open and sports have continued and people have freely travelled around the country boosting their tourism- we could have easily done that.
Do not get me started on the Delta variant ? travel from the UK was banned on 23rd December 2020 and many of the people travelling here in April/May were not on holiday, many were people who left before Christmas 2020 and a large number left the UK many years before and travelled back to the UK to escape the shocking out break India are unable to control- this is exactly why the India variant has seen cases rise significantly.
Luckily the vaccination has proved to be a huge success ? we are going to have to learn to live with COVID and keeping us in lockdown is not working. The Americans, Indians, South Africans, ltalians, Germans, French have been travelling throughout the last year.
What is the best way people can show their support to the industry at a contentious time like this?
I really hope the general public will eventually understand at no time were the majority of us holding clients money and I do not think a day would go by without tears of frustration as both myself and other travel agents would spend hours on the phone holding for a tour op, airline etc only to be cut off, emails that would either be ignored or take weeks for a response.
No-one has achieved the airtime on behalf of the industry to explain to consumers how hard it has been for us ? all we have had to put up with is ?Simon Calder says...? or ?Martin Lewis says..."
This is when ABTA needed to achieve more in terms of airtime to explain to consumers why it was impossible to refund their money within 14 days. I am really lucky; my clients have emailed me, phoned me to make sure I am OK.
Consumers need to realise a good travel agent, who has been there for their clients throughout the pandemic, 9/11, the ash cloud, tour operator and airline failures, are worth their weight in gold.
Only a few weeks before the pandemic hit, I was in intensive care following life-saving brain surgery but still booking holidays, if I had known then they would all be cancelled within a few weeks I would have left my laptop in my office!
If you'd like to share your views with us as part of the Travel Day of Action, please contact the Travel Bulletin team at news@travelbulletin.co.uk
