Travel ‘not out of woods yet’, says Tanzer as he defends Abta lobbying

Speaking at the association’s Travel Matters seminar in Westminster on Wednesday (14 June), Mark Tanzer said that despite a “steady recovery from the dark days of the pandemic”, the sector was “not out of the woods yet”.

“Many customers are still in a cost of living squeeze with a stubbornly high inflation rate keeping interest rates and mortgage costs high, and travel companies are still burdened with the debt overhang from the pandemic, at higher interest rates,” he said.

Tanzer said the travel industry and government needed to “work together towards a shared vision” for the sector’s future – including “putting the debate about Brexit behind us" and building "new bridges to the EU and beyond”.

Quizzed on the effectiveness of Abta’s lobbying efforts with government during recent years, and whether travel had acted with “one voice” as an industry, Tanzer said: “Some people think every relationship with the government has to be adversarial but it’s about ‘how do we work together to solve problems?’ 

“Covid made us come together as a collective. Travel is a sector of sectors – the same industry with different interests and different parts of the jigsaw. We were able to bring that experience together. It’s really important for us to have that relationship with whoever is in government."

His comments followed a call from Advantage Travel Partnership chief Julia Lo Bue-Said earlier this year for better industry collaboration and representation with powers in Westminster.

"Our industry was not looked after during Covid so, quite simply, I believe more needs to happen and change if we are to be looked after when we hit our next crises," Lo Bue-Said told delegates at the Advantage conference in March.

"Do I believe the industry needs to upweight its political engagement; yes I do 100%. Why would we settle with doing less? Do consumers not deserve clarity too? If we and our partners don’t invest more in this, once again pubs and theatres and other sectors will be looked after and we will be forgotten again.

"A senior government official recently said to me they were surprised travel agents still existed – it’s not the first time we’ve heard this. It’s simply not an option to let the people running the country think this way."