The boss of Althams Travel has had a ‘positive’ face-to-face meeting with chancellor Rishi Sunak to outline problems facing the travel trade.
Sandra McAllister, managing director of the 32-branch travel agency chain, managed to land 15 minutes with Sunak, her MP, at one of his local surgeries after repeatedly pushing for a “face-to-face” chat since the start of the pandemic.
“I’ve had 12 letters back and forth but I’ve been saying I couldn’t get my points across strongly enough and pushed for a face-to-face meeting,” said McAllister, who also met Sunak on Zoom last June with other local businesses in his constituency in Richmond, north Yorkshire.
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McAllister said she was now confident Sunak “understood” the key issues facing travel agents despite the fact he gave nothing away about the government’s plans.
In the meeting she raised nine key points, including: how agents earn their income; the all-round service agents provide; the importance of the outbound sector; the inability for agents to fully use the furlough system; the unfairness of the traffic light system; the need for the extension of the furlough scheme and business rate relief; and the need for higher restart grants.
She said: “The security around Rishi’s arrival was very tight and the meeting was started with a stopwatch, I’ve never spoken so quickly!
“He was cautious not to give anything concrete away but he seemed to listen. I believe he was in agreement with most of my points as he volunteered very little in the way of a defence. He did intimate that he did agree that the traffic light system showed no common sense and that two vaccinations should suffice.”
McAllister, who left the meeting “feeling hopeful”, added: “He does sympathise with our industry and is so sorry for the impact it has had on our industry. Towards the end of the meeting he said he understood the plight of the travel agent.”
Within days McAllister received a letter back from Sunak in which he said he had taken on board her request for sector specific support.
She urged the industry to collectively keep up the pressure on the government.
She said: “I feel we have definitely got through – we have to continue pushing for that sector support by whatever means.”
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