Andy Brewer, sales director of online travel agency Blue Sea Holidays, gives a personal account of one business’s experience of the coronavirus crisis
For us, the enormity of the problems our business was about to face hit home on the weekend of March 14-15 with the news that the Jet2 aircraft that had set off from the UK in the morning had turned round and gone home and that Spain was going into ‘lockdown’.
I don’t think anyone realised what that meant at that time – and certainly on that day no-one thought we would still be in ‘lockdown’ six weeks later.
The lead-up
Despite some ‘noises’ coming out of China, we had a normal January sales month; not our best but not our worst and we had no real indications of the very serious situation that was around the corner. In February the volume of sales started to decline and marketing resources were cut back but I still didn’t see how much this was going to affect us. After all, we traded throughout the Sars and bird flu epidemics and both had passed us by without incident.
“We had no real indications of the very serious situation that was around the corner.”
I thought we would have the odd case here and there and, in the main, I think everybody thought the same. Then came that March weekend and we had to hold the first meeting of our crisis team on Monday March 16. This team was formed after the demise of Goldtrail Holidays in 2010 and had also been called into action following events such as the demises of On Holiday Group and Low Cost Beds, the cancellation of travel to Sharm El Sheikh, the collapse of Monarch and, most recently, the collapse of Thomas Cook. The initial feeling was that this would be like dealing with the latter, and it would be a matter of contacting all our clients and rebooking them for a future date.
The staff
There were many tears shed during the first few days. The vast majority of our sales team work from home and are self-employed. That’s also the case with 50% of the admin and marketing teams. The team is truly multinational, with head office in Majorca but sales, admin and marketing teams working from the UK, India, Greece, Australia and Singapore.
The sales team saw their incomes not only stop overnight but any income they thought they already had disappeared in potential refunds. The admin team were retained, but on reduced terms. The marketing team had to be released.
Blue Sea Holidays is like a family, with most of our employees long-serving. I had to make some very tough decisions regarding who we could retain, but our income was zero (actually minus due to the refunds) and, unlike previous situations, there was no end date to this – everything was conjecture. We have held a number of video conferences with our teams to keep them in the loop and to help them still feel part of the process. All the senior retained staff have taken big wage reductions as well. We are all in this together.
“Blue Sea Holidays is like a family, with most of our employees long-serving. I had to make some very tough decisions regarding who we could retain.”
The cash
Very quickly we contacted all our suppliers with a view to delaying invoice payments to retain as much cash in the business as possible. Thankfully most of our suppliers were very understanding, although there were some exceptions. When everything returns to ‘normal’ I will be reviewing our suppliers and will endeavour to support those that supported us through these unprecedented times.
Our clients and the ‘R’ question
Someone might have written in days of yore “to refund or not refund; that is the question”. Being part of the Broadway Consortium, our clients’ money is fully protected, safe and sound in a trust account. Normally we would not have an issue with refunds, but the decision by the airlines to play ‘ducks and drakes’ with customers’ money and remove the refund button from their websites – making getting the money back for cancelled flights a long and laborious process – means we cannot offer refunds quickly.
Our admin team, supplemented by some senior staff members, have dealt admirably with our clients, rebooking them for future dates, arranging refund credit notes or full refunds for those that we can. I am so proud of our team that are working so hard to try and preserve our business and help our customers.
The future…
My focus is on getting the business ready and trying to make sure we are ready to relaunch when that day comes. I have spent some time recriminating with myself and wondering what I could have done differently. I am waiting on a response from our bank on our application for a Business Interruption Loan and I wish I had had the foresight to do that earlier, but we have never asked for any help or external finance in our 13-year history so we were slow to realise we would need it now.
No-one knows when or if we can restart or indeed what is going to happen when we do. Will there be any flights and, if there are, will anyone want to fly? Will our clients be able to afford holidays as many of them will have been furloughed, taken mortgage holidays or run up credit card bills? Will Easyjet implement its idea of removing the sale of all middle seats but then increase prices to compensate? Will clients have to wear masks on the plane, in the hotels, on the beach? Will they need medical certificates to get on the plane? Will they be tested at the airport?
No-one knows the answers to these questions or indeed many others but, at some point, people will want to travel again.
I want us to be ready to take people on holiday when they do.
Blue Sea Holidays is an OTA and part of the Broadway Travel Consortium. Its clients are predominantly families and couples who book beach holidays to the Mediterranean and Red Sea.