Two of travel’s largest agent groups released new statements on Thursday (30 September) on the final day of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme – which has played a vital role sustaining industry jobs during the past 18 months. 

Government figures from early September revealed nearly 27,000 agent and tour operator staff were still on furlough at the end of July, with thousands more in travel and tourism also likely to have been reliant on the scheme.

Advantage said that as the government cuts its “only meaningful financial lifeline” available to travel agents since the onset of pandemic, 40% of members felt furlough’s end was their biggest fear, while 12% said they will be forced to make redundancies and only a third are able to bring back all of their staff on regular hours. 

More than half of Advantage members (57%) said they have agreed a continuation of reduced hours and pay to remain for the foreseeable future.

Advantage chief executive Julia Lo Bue-Said called the ending of furlough “a major blow” for many travel agents.

“If the British government wants to cut the industry adrift like this, they must make the trading environment conducive to success not failure. We are still dealing with an incredibly complex and restrictive system which does not allow for businesses to trade into recovery,” she said.

“We urge government to go further than the changes made earlier this month [and] scrap the red list altogether, scrap the ineffective testing requirements and let us get on with the business of travel. Neither the red list nor the testing policy have any data-led public health justification to continue. It’s time to get real and admit these policies are pure PR, and further barriers to our recovery as an industry.”

Meanwhile, TTNG boss Lewis said furlough had been “a lifeline to the industry” which he believed had “undoubtedly” made a difference to tens of thousands of industry employees.

“However, it hasn’t been a silver bullet and many businesses could have used support to keep their staff working – processing cancellations and postponements rather than keeping their teams out of the business,” he said.

“We have said throughout the pandemic that the travel sector will be the last to recover and we urgently need the government to provide sector specific support to the industry.

“The government has said that they have provided the tourism, hospitality, leisure and aviation sectors with billions of pounds-worth of funding, but tour operators and travel agents have not benefitted. With the furlough scheme ending today, many travel business owners are having difficult conversations with their teams, some of whom have worked in these businesses for decades.

Lewis said TTNG was “seeing green shoots of recovery” across its membership but questioned “whether that will be enough to allow many businesses to trade out of the pandemic remains to be seen”.

“We know that a lot of businesses are facing cash flow problems until bookings turn into travelled holidays. Ease of travel over the October half-term holidays and consistent access to winter sun destinations will be crucial to the recovery of the sector,” he added.