Holidaysplease director Richard Dixon told TTG the Birmingham-based business has already received 80 enquiries since the start of July – around five times more than the number of applicants in July 2019.

“From the beginning of this month, we started to see quite a significant increase in interest with people getting in touch to find out about our proposition,” added Dixon.

“A lot of people working within travel are clearly being affected by the fallout of the Covid fallout – a lot have been on furlough and are now sadly losing their jobs.”

Dixon said that they had received enquiries from high street agents as well as those who previously worked in call centres for travel firms and existing homeworkers.

Holidaysplease currently has around 100 homeworkers including 11 who have joined since the lockdown and took part in a “virtual” induction process. Another online induction is planned for mid-August.

“We’re focused on finding the right people and expect our numbers to increase over the coming months,” said Dixon.

With such an increase in potential new recruits, Holidaysplease is planning a webinar on 30 July, which will look at the factors agents should consider when deciding whether homeworking is for them and how to choose the most suitable company to join.

“People should be fussy about who they partner up with, otherwise they could get it wrong,” added Dixon.

“We want to help people in the industry who’ve recently lost their jobs to see if they want to move into a different way of working. It’s about understanding the different opportunities and helping them to make a good decision.”