John Hays said the company had been studying research and examining data from China to see how the domestic market had responded to the crisis there.

“Obviously theirs is a very different market to ours... but I think there will be increased demand for the UK,” he said. “Currently it is a very small part of what we do – maybe we need to do more.”

Elsewhere, John and Irene Hays confirmed the agency would not be opening its shops on Monday (15 June), despite government guidance allowing non-essential stores to open.

“We’ve been discussing this for a long time and it’s really important that our staff and customers feel safe,” said Irene. “We’re doing lots and lots of bookings with our 3,000 employees who are working from home and that’s working incredibly well, so we are in no rush to open on 15 June.

“We don’t know yet about the appetite for people to return to the retail environment, even with social distancing,” she added, “so we have some steps in place to make sure we are ready to go. If the business comes back very quickly, we’ve got contingency plans for that.”