Desperate Surf Coast travel agent’s call for more government support

A Surf Coast travel agent says coronavirus has decimated her business and that her industry needs more government support to stay afloat as they work to refund cancelled trips for their clients.

STRUGGLING travel agents, still waiting on hundreds of thousands of dollars of refunds from cancelled trips, are calling on the federal government to offer more financial support.

Aireys Inlet’s Kerstin Masson said her KCM Travel business has been “decimated” by the coronavirus pandemic.

She and other industry workers are bracing for an even more difficult year ahead if JobKeeper ends in March as planned.

KCM travel previously employed six staff and currently has Ms Masson and one other worker paid through JobKeeper.

Ms Masson said prior to 2020, 95 per cent of her income came from selling overseas trip.

This year she tried to make up for the income loss by shifting toward the domestic market.

Despite a positive start to the year, Ms Masson said her business was dealt a bitter blow by the shock five-day snap lockdown.

“We had booked trips from people going to Noosa, people going to Canberra and people going to Sydney,” Ms Masson said.

“They were all booked as packages and they had to be cancelled.

“There is no confidence the way things keep happening with borders and I had to cancel all trips and try to get refunds.”

The travel industry has fallen on hard times during the coronavirus pandemic. Picture: Istock

Ms Masson said she was still waiting to receive in excess of $600,000 from hotels and travel companies to reimburse customers for trips cancelled last year.

She said the need reimburse customers meant it was impossible to walk away from the industry.

“I can’t just say ‘let’s lock the doors’, I need to help my clients,” she said.

Helloworld Travel Leopold manager Brett Robinson said JobKeeper was the “only thing” keeping his family business going.

“We have cancelled all our bookings for 11 months and have had to refund money that we had already spent on rent and wages so have actually been going backwards,” he said.

He said if travel agents did not receive extra support Australians would use foreign-owned companies to book trips which would take the money out of this country.

“We all want to work in travel and love our job but we cannot go on like this as we are unprofitable until international borders open,” he said.

Corangamite MP Libby Coker has urged Prime Minister Scott Morrison to support the industry.

“It would only take one meeting with these travel agents to know we shouldn’t be ripping away support,” Ms Coker said. “I’m calling on the government to put together a comprehensive plan to help this industry survive the pandemic.”

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg recently said the government had provided targeted support from for travels agents and would consider whatever future targeted assistance may be required.

He said the key to assisting the industry was for the states to determine a unified response to border closures.

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Originally published as Desperate Surf Coast travel agent’s call for more government support