‘The biggest challenge the travel industry has faced’

‘At the start our priority was to get those clients that were away back home before the lockdown came in,’ said Jamie Blondel.

‘I am pleased to say we got everyone back that wanted to, as some stayed away as they were with family.’

World Travel contacted clients who were due to travel and advised that they had to cancel or move their holiday.

As time went on and borders started to get shut down, there were more and more holidays and cruises being cancelled.

‘Since then, and when Guernsey pretty much closed off, we have been cancelling and moving clients’ holidays.’

He said around 65% of bookings that were affected have moved to next year or the year after and 35% have requested a refund.

‘During this time all of us have been working hard on behalf of our clients, and trying to get the money back from airlines and operators hasn’t been easy, and this is still ongoing.

‘As the time went on during lockdown and even now we are having to do this to future bookings that have been cancelled.’

World Travel deals mainly with Guernsey residents and the general feeling at the moment is that a lot of islanders are reluctant to book anything until they know the borders will be open, it is safe to travel, and the 14-day quarantine will not be in place.

Mr Blondel continued: ‘Once all of these are back to normal we expect people to be travelling once again, however it may be a little different to the past as certain restrictions will be in place for certain areas of the world.

‘Without doubt this has been the biggest challenge that the travel and tourism sector has ever faced.

‘I know speaking to other agents on the island that we are all doing our best to get through this and will be there to help arrange clients’ travel arrangements.’

IT HAS been a hectic few months for the travel industry dealing with a high volume of cancellations and reduced staff numbers, the head of marketing, membership and travel at the Channel Islands Co-operative Society has said.

Since the restrictions were put in place in March, the society’s travel team has been extremely busy managing the rebooking of holidays for a later date or processing cancellations with the various suppliers they work with.

‘Due to the sheer volume of holiday cancellations across the industry, along with the travel companies working on reduced resource as many employees were furloughed, it has been a hectic few months,’ Carl Winn said.

As lockdowns and travel restrictions across many countries came into force there were more than 1,000 live bookings to manage and as the weeks went by more and more holidays were being cancelled as the restrictions continued.

‘At times it has been difficult to contact the travel companies and in some cases it has taken us up to six hours to get through to a tour operator,’ he said.

‘The vast majority of our customers have either rebooked or received refunds and we have been inundated with emails and letters from customers complimenting our travel team and how they have handled the situation while delivering excellent service.’

There have been a few suppliers who have struggled to process the volume of refunds in a timely manner and as a result there are still some customers who are waiting for refunds.

The society has apologised to these customers and said it is doing its best to apply pressure to get these resolved as quickly as possible.

Now that the Foreign & Commonwealth Office is looking to relax travel restrictions, the UK government is promising to give clarity on the 14-day quarantine on arrival, which has been mandatory since 8 June but not from the island, and more detail around air bridges, some locals are enquiring about holidays for late summer.

While it is too early to tell how many people will want to book holidays, he said, it is positive to see many airlines rescheduling services from early July and some short haul tour operators selling holidays for mid-July onwards.

Mr Winn continued: ‘We have been receiving enquires for 2021 and now many operators have 2022 dates on sale.

‘Naturally locals are, in the main, enquiring about destinations closer to home but the Maldives does account for more than 50% of the enquiries we have made with our partners at Kuoni.’

It will take some time for the industry to recover and while there is still uncertainty on what the future of travel looks like, Mr Winn said the industry is very resilient.

‘While there is a demand from people wanting to travel, the industry will bounce back, albeit the experience might be different for the foreseeable future.’