How the Travel Counsellors Welfare Fund is helping agents in the Covid-19 crisis

With nearly a quarter of British employees currently on furlough and businesses temporarily closed across the UK and Ireland, it’s no secret that the coronavirus crisis is causing financial hardship for an unprecedented number of people. It’s more noticeable in the travel industry than most, with customers cancelling holidays and suppliers suspending operations, leaving travel agents in the middle to try and pick up the pieces.

Travel Counsellors is a homeworking giant in which the hardship could be felt more widely, with individual travel agents responsible for their own businesses, profits and pay. In response, head office decided to invest more into the Travel Counsellors Welfare Fund, a service dedicated to providing financial support to agents in need.

Kieran Hartwell, Travel Counsellors’ managing director for corporate travel, heads up the fund and says the service has always been an important resource for the company’s self-employed community: “The fund was buried in the company and has loaned, gifted and granted [money] for the past 25 years – it’s been foundational to helping [agents] grow their business.”