Donna Meads-Barlow from Donna Barlow Travel/I Love Cruising is outraged at the PM’s ignorance of how the travel industry works. Got an opinion to share? Let us know in up to 400 words via email to feedback@traveldaily.com.au.
AFTER another week of activity in Canberra, sadly it seems we are really no further in saving the industry. I can only hope and pray that Government understands the impact if in this next week a “TravelKeeper” is not announced.
Time is now the essence for survival of the Australian travel agent! Decision time is looming – after 40 years in the business, who will process the 1,320 forward cancellations and refunds in our system from Apr 2021 on?
We continue to live in devastation, with no support to maintain staff and no future direction in sight. I read the article about the Prime Minister’s newfound enthusiasm for the half-price fares to be booked through travel agents in Travel Daily (TD 19 Mar) and I have to say “is ScoMo kidding himself”?
1. We all know that the $1.2 billion will be driven directly into the airlines’ pockets.
2. Airlines don’t pay agents remuneration for the work we do.
3. For an agent to make a dollar we need to charge a fee.
4. Domestic consumers will book direct with the airline and then go direct to the land suppliers – we all know that!
With no form of future TravelKeeper to save our staff, we are left with the confronting decision of “now what”?
Over these past 12 months as a business owner, we have received JobKeeper personally, however we have also still had to meet our business contractual obligations and fund them ourselves, with zero and negative income.
We continue to pay Tramada, Sabre, insurance, phones, internet, subscription fees and so the list goes on in outgoings.
JobKeeper has at least helped put bread on our table for us and our staff. Now what? Who will process the refunds that continue to stream in if we close?
For our I Love Cruising (ILC) franchise model business, we have 20 sole-trader businesses relying on our ILC survival. We have refunded to date well in excess of $10 million including ALL our hard-earned income and commissions for the past 18 months. As an offshoot, ILC has NO employees on the books and therefore no JobKeeper qualification – meaning we have also been unable to access any Government grant support for this cruise and travel business.
As for our Donna Barlow Travel (DBT) business – 60% corporate and 40% leisure – pre-COVID we had 17 staff, today just four that have received JobKeeper. DBT has also received some Government grant support which has helped in paying outgoings.
With JobKeeper finishing we are faced with:
a) When borders do finally open, we are looking at a complete business start-up model.
b) How long is it likely to take until we see any remuneration or positive income?
c) How do we maintain our now skeleton staff to continue administration tasks and continue to process refunds till business and positive income resumes?
Bottom line – with NO TravelKeeper support, why would we continue? What incentive do we have to keep staff on? Who processes the refunds now?
The facts are the facts and seemingly we are now at the finish-line. We are absolutely confronted with some serious decisions….do we now dip into our retirement fund to save our staff and our businesses, facing a complete start-up again when business resumes to some form of pre-COVID normality?
I PRAY someone in government with the power to SAVE THE TRAVEL AGENT who “understands” is listening….