Scottish travel agents trading at 10% of pre-pandemic rates
Will PayneA survey of Scottish Passenger Agents’ Association (SPAA) members has revealed that the majority of travel agencies have been operating at 10% or less of their pre-pandemic revenue.
With travel agents not receiving any income until the customer actually travels, agents are faced with refunding bookings made pre-pandemic which meant that once credit card refund charges are taken into account, agents have had negative income since Autumn 2019, according to the association.
A third of SPAA members have taken a second job since March 2020 to help their businesses survive and 7% of these members have taken more than three jobs.
Almost 70% of travel agency owners surveyed have had "virtually no income" since the start of the pandemic.
Joanne Dooey, president of SPAA, said the recent changes to the green list will make "little impact" on the industry’s ability to generate revenue.
"The traditional Scottish summer ’take off’ is earlier than in England due to the different school holidays. Changes are too late to help Scottish agents with summer revenue," she added.
"The Scottish travelling public needs a much clearer traffic lights system; with a simple green for go and red for stop. We also need a far more cost-effective testing regime, without a Scottish government mandated monopoly to bring parity with other UK nations and which doesn’t financially penalise Scots who want to travel."
The survey also showed that 72% of agencies still have staff on furlough.
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