Ministers have been accused of a “complete lack of comprehension” on how the travel sector can survive the Covid-19 crisis.
The criticism was voiced by the head of the UK’s largest independent travel agency consortium in response to the government announcing a Global Travel Taskforce.
The Taskforce has been tasked to work with the industry to cut the 14-day quarantine restrictions on international arrivals with Covid testing.
But Advantage Travel Partnership chief executive Julia Lo Bue Said attacked the government’s response at a time when other countries introduce concrete measures to stimulate travel.
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She warned that her 700 members employing almost 10,000 people face financial ruin with 90,000 job losses feared across the sector.
Clearly frustrated by inaction from Westminster since the virus struck, she said: “We are now seven months into a pandemic with a government that appears to have no thought-out strategy or concrete timescale on testing for travellers which is creating confusion and frankly utter chaos.
“While the announcement of a new Global Travel Taskforce is a step in the right direction, it does not alleviate the financial strain and frustration placed on the travel sector at this moment in time, and we need assistance now.
“The travel industry has been immobilised, we are a key economic driver for so many businesses across so many sectors. We employ hundreds of thousands of people and create huge amounts of tax revenue for the government and yet to date, have been totally side-lined.
“Today we saw that Air Canada is trial testing where 13,000 travellers were tested on arrival, and then again after seven and 14 days and 98% showed negative results – we welcome forward thinking businesses like this and question why the UK government isn’t thinking along these lines to give our travel industry the tools we need to survive.”
She added: “It seems as though this government is hell-bent on keeping the industry on the naughty step, with a complete lack of comprehension on how the industry can survive this crisis.
“Without help or a clear path to recovery, this will cost the UK economy over £60 billion in leisure and inbound activity but over £220 billion in business travel that relies on aviation, events and meetings.
“In my own business, over 700 small to medium sized companies who employ close to 10,000 people face financial ruin.
“These are businesses that are viable, some are family run companies, in local communities up and down the UK that have traded profitably for many years but when you have not been able to trade at all and have had to refund all the income you have earned – in some cases refunds for bookings made over a year ago – how is any business supposed to survive this?
“Every business plans for low periods but I would like to know how the government expects ‘viable’ businesses to trade on zero income to date and zero continued support for any length of time.
“This is not about taking a holiday during a pandemic, it’s about ensuring there are appropriate measures to support an industry when the government has created an impossible trading environment.
Travel redundancy fears
“The new Job Support Scheme does not benefit an industry that is unable to trade and will leave to even more redundancies across our entire eco-system expected to be in the region of 90,000 jobs.
“The future looks bleak – there is a tidal wave of business failures coming our way and further heartache about to hit our industry as a tsunami of redundancies approaches.”
In further reaction, Chris Galanty, global chief excutive of Flight Centre’s business travel divisions, said: “We understand that the government has a hard balance to strike between the health of the nation and the success of the economy, so we’re happy to hear that a dedicated Global Travel Taskforce has been created to alleviate the issues facing the business and leisure travel sectors.
“We implore the Global Travel Taskforce to work quickly and efficiently with partners from the aviation, travel, healthcare and testing sectors to resolve the current 14-day quarantine period which is affecting business travel companies up and down the country.
“We believe safe travel is the most important way forward and would like to see movement on airport testing, quarantine exemptions for business travellers and transparent guidelines to get the travel industry and economy going.
“Our corporate customers are telling us is that they need to resume business travel as soon as they possibly can, which is why we are working with them to facilitate safe travel. Pre-Covid, our UK business travel customers, ranging from large enterprises managed FCM, to SME companies handled by Corporate Traveller, spent a total of £831M per annum on business travel.
“Business travel is vital for these individual companies; it is vital for the airlines, hotels and everyone else in the supply chain. And it’s vital for the UK economy. We hope that the implementation of the Global Travel Task Force instils much needed confidence in the business travel sector.”
UKinbound chief executive Joss Croft said: “The creation of this Taskforce is a positive step forward but government needs to ensure that it is inviting all sectors of the tourism industry to contribute, including inbound which was worth £28 billion to the UK economy in 2019.
Testing calls
“Introducing testing on arrival would be a significant step in the right direction and show that the UK is open for businesses.
“We are waiting to see the detail, but this move would help to boost consumer confidence to travel again to the UK.
“Demand and visitor numbers won’t bounce back overnight, and many UK tourism businesses are still facing a very bleak winter or worse – which is why the government needs to provide targeted support for viable inbound tourism businesses, to ensure they can survive until demand returns later in 2021, as they will significantly support the recovery of international travel.”
Rory Boland, editor of Which? Travel, said: “The government’s inconsistent approach to travel corridors and quarantine over the summer has cost consumers dearly. Many were left with holidays they couldn’t take and airlines that refused to refund them thousands of pounds, so holidaymakers will largely welcome new measures to reduce the quarantine period.
“However, it’s not just confidence in their holiday going ahead that consumers need, they also need assurance that if it doesn’t go ahead they will get their money back.
“Many travel companies and airlines have refused or delayed refunds, and trust in the travel industry is at record lows.
“It is clear major reforms are needed as part of the industry’s recovery to ensure that people can have confidence in their travel bookings.”
More: Government commits to testing ‘to open up international travel’
Airlines call for quick implementation of testing plans
