UK & Ireland’s Community Hero: Sarah Davis, The Personal Travel Agents at Co-operative Travel

This special category celebrates travel agents and agencies who
have shown extraordinary commitment to giving back to their local community and charitable causes. With immense pressures on agents themselves in the past year, it has been particularly impressive to see so many strive to help others as well. Despite an incredibly strong shortlist, judges wanted to recognise this particular agent, who looked beyond her own situation and took a personal approach to helping a struggling family affected by the downturn in tourism due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Personal Travel Agent (PTA) Sarah Davis first met tour guide Kadek on her own holiday to Bali several years ago. They became firm friends and she subsequently recommended his services to many customers, friends and family.

When the pandemic hit in March and tourism closed down, Kadek was left with no income and was forced to leave his family village with his wife and young child to go to the city. Here, he and his wife would bake cakes to sell door-to-door to survive.

Sarah’s own livelihood in the travel industry was also in peril as a self-employed homeworker with no guaranteed income but rather than wallow in her own problems, she was intent upon helping the tour guide.

Having personally helped Kadek over the years by creating an account so his child could go to university, she wanted to do more to help him with the awful situation he was faced with. She rallied her fellow PTAs, asking for their support, and despite the personal pressures on these agents they donated more than £600 between them.

Sarah sent the funds on to Kadek. The donations have enabled him to move back to his village with his family and have supported him for six months. She continues to support him in any way she can, despite not earning herself for months.

Hers is a truly selfless act that shows how tourism really can be such a force for good – right down to the individual level.