A shortage of agency staff, and across the travel industry more widely, has been identified as a growing problem since autumn 2021 when bookings started to pick up for the trade.
The problem also seems to be getting worse as sales increased during the peaks booking period in January, with demand returning strongly after the UK government began lifting travel restrictions from early in the month.
Bridget Keevil, owner of Travel Stop in Suffolk, said that only one of her four high street shops was currently open full-time, due to a lack of staff.
“We’re busy – but that’s partly because we’ve only got one shop open full-time,” she told TTG. “The other shops are only open one or two days per week, or by appointment, as we don’t have the staff to open them full-time.
“I want to open all the shops full-time. But it’s difficult and it’s going to continue, as I’m not suddenly going to find 10 new members of staff by magic.”
Travel Stop employed a total of 21 staff across its shops before the Covid-19 crisis but now only has a team of eight.
Keevil said former members of her team had moved out of the travel industry after enduring the “horrible and demoralising” Covid period when they spent most of their time dealing with refunds.
Despite the staffing challenges, Keevil added: “It’s a bit of a nightmare – but I’d rather have this nightmare than the nightmare of nobody booking holidays that we had last year.”
Jeanne Lally, joint managing director of Travel Bureau in Gosforth, said many former travel industry staff did not seem willing to return to the sector yet.
“We’re managing at the moment, but it’s really tight. We just don’t see anyone out there that wants to come back into travel at this stage,” she added.
“We’re OK now, but I don’t know how long that will last given there’s a shortage of good people out there – either because they’ve left the industry or don’t want to move.”
Tour operators are also having problems with the recruitment and retention of staff – it was the number-one concern for them, according to a survey of 30 travel companies carried out by business advisor PwC for the TTG+ Agenda 2022 online event earlier this week.
