An agent in Macclesfield is thinking about running as a parliamentary candidate for the town after becoming tired of his local MPs failure to get back to him in a meaningful way on the issues that continue to almost entirely prevent agents from trading normally.
Henbury Travel owner Richard Slater said he had repeatedly written to his local MP David Rutley on the issue, only to receive the same "generic" reply several times.
"When I write, I get a standard letter back that doesn’t actually answer any of my questions," Slater told TTG.
"It gets me quite annoyed. I’ve seen loads of letters from other locals who have written to him who have all received the same response, with the exact same wording. Absolutely identical."
Slater, who is also the north west regional chair for Abta and has previously considering standing for his local council, called on the government to implement a "slow and cautious" return to overseas tourism.
"We don’t want the whole world to reopen immediately, not until it is safe to do so, we just want it gradual and cautious – albeit not too cautious," said Slater.
"I’m not saying we want to immediately go everywhere. What I am saying is give us parts of the Mediterranean, for example, and see how that goes, and then go from there."
Slater raised concerns over easyJet’s decision, confirmed on Tuesday (15 June), that it would be shifting some of its UK capacity to Europe where it said there was "positive booking momentum".
"Back in February, I told my customers we wouldn’t be taking any new bookings for departures up to 1 July because I couldn’t see it happening. I was scoffed at by some, but look what happened."
Slater said he also spoke to hoteliers in the Algarve who said they had thrown away “thousands” of euros of food following the government’s abrupt decision to remove Portugal from the green list.
“It’s a disgrace," he said. The government should be shamed into doing something about that because that’s terrible, so much food wasted."
Despite the planned 21 June unlock being delayed for four-weeks, Slater is still optimistic about the future for overseas travel.
"I do think we will get something in July, a few destinations hopefully," he said. "2022 is looking incredibly positive, and balance payments have been good recently. I am looking forward to next year."
Abta’s Save Future Travel coalition is spearheading a travel "day of action" next Thursday (23 June) to coincide with a fresh parliamentary debate on support for the travel and aviation sectors.