Coronavirus: travel agents facing a long hard road

Australian travel agents say the industry has suffered a 90 per cent downturn with minimal cashflow due to border lockdowns.

Perth-based Global Travel Solutions agent Jo -Anne Francis empties out her office with the help of her colleague, Karen Way. Picture: Colin Murty

Australian travel agents say the industry has suffered a 90 per cent downturn with minimal cashflow due to border lockdowns, but government support for financial hardship has been based on the criteria of a 30 per cent reduction in turnover.

The Australian Federation of Travel Agents’ submissions to federal and state governments for targeted assistance comes as members say they are confronting a nightmare scenario, working long hours to process cancelled bookings for clients but unable to earn a cent or pay ongoing bills.

Perth travel agent Jo Francis says she is processing $2.5m worth of refunds at her own expense, because she feels obliged to help clients who have booked holidays with her for decades.

But the work of unravelling hundreds of bookings is stressful, she says, and amounts to a form of welfare work that she says is hitting travel agents’ morale and hip pockets.

“The governments have taken away our ability to trade, and we feel abandoned,” she said. Last week, the WA government announced a $3m industry support package, which it claims is the nation’s first targeted fund to help travel agents.

Ms Francis says the $3m fund, which will provide $5000 to home-based agents and $10,000 to office-based businesses, has come too late to save her from having to pack up her City Beach office and move back home.

Even then, she says, the responsibility to refund her last trip payment may continue into early 2022.

“At the same time I have experienced a 100 per cent downturn in turnover. We need Commonwealth support or some of us will be closing before Christmas, and our clients will find it much harder to get their money back.”

Travel agent Kylee Ellerton, from Ballarat in Victoria, says she has had only three paid bookings since March but is still turning up to her office every day to process 650 refunds on her books.

“I’m sitting there from 10 to 3 processing refunds for nothing,” she says. “JobKeeper has been helpful to pay my four staff, and we’ve got small business lockdown grants of $10,000 and $5000 from the Victorian government, but it doesn’t go far,” she said.

International travel was 75 per cent of her business, so the future looked grim, she said.

Vivien Davies, whose travel business is in Sylvania, in Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s NSW electorate, says she has processed half of 3000 cancelled bookings, mainly complex cruise and extended tour packages for retirees.

“They can take up to 60 hours to book, and another 60 hours to try and get refunds for clients when they are cancelled,” she said. She also had to surrender her $16,000 a month lease and move her business home.

“We can’t see any real recovery in travel bookings until 2024, or until there’s a proper vaccine.”

The Australian Federation of Travel Agents (AFTA) has made submissions to federal and state governments, saying support for hardship across all industries has been based on the criteria of a 30 per cent reduction in turnover.

Yet the travel industry has suffered a 90 per cent downturn, with minimal cashflow.

It estimated about four million impacted travellers were seeking outstanding funds of $10bn.

Meanwhile, many of the nation’s 40,000 travel agents and 3000 agencies are retail operators keen to remain a trusted part of their local community, often supporting schools, sporting clubs and charities.

Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham has warned state and territory governments not to rely solely on federal assistance for the tourism industry if it was affected by unnecessary state government decisions to limit travel.