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Holidaysplease bags £160,000 booking during Covid downturn

Homeworking agency Holidaysplease has secured a bumper booking worth £160,000 despite the ongoing Covid-19-hit to demand for travel.

The January holiday to Sugar Beach hotel, in St Lucia, is a birthday celebration for 14 people and flights are yet to be added.

Holidaysplease marketing director Charles Duncombe said: “When I first saw the booking appear on the system I thought it was a typo with the decimal point in the wrong place.

“However, I was delighted to see that it was genuine and that the clients will be travelling in January. It was nice that the booking came from one of the 4,000 or so leads that we provide to homeworkers each month.”

When asked whether he was worried that the booking may cancel due to Covid-19, Duncombe said: “We have been very careful with the hotel’s booking conditions and so we will be able to offer the customer full flexibility if their plans change. We also haven’t booked the flights yet and will be working with an airline to offer the same flexibility.

“At the moment, the Caribbean is relatively unscathed when it comes to Covid but we know that on smaller islands the Covid rate per 100,000 people can rise sharply with just few cases and so we will be monitoring the figures closely over the coming weeks.”

Holidaysplease said that the homeworker who made the booking usually just works on her own base of customers but had decided to take a few enquiries from the “pool” to help supplement her business during the downturn.

She will earn a five figure commission on the booking and has told Duncombe she going to take more enquiries from the pool in the future!.

A Holidaysplease agent made a £103,000 booking to Barbados at the peak of the Covid crisis in April, which the company says has led to an increase in applications for homeworking positions at the firm.

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