We came together during Covid recognising travel colleagues were really struggling. Whether it was from the pressure of refunds, customer abuse, financial pressures and knowing that however hard they tried for their customers and their business, events were out of their control.
And people truly suffered. At Abta LifeLine we saw first-hand those struggling to cope in a very difficult environment with little light at the end of the tunnel.
The pandemic really brought home the importance of mental health and wellbeing. But it’s imperative to recognise mental health and wellbeing was just as important before the pandemic as it is after; the pandemic just brought it into focus with additional pressures and fears.
And yet TTG’s most recent survey clearly highlights there has been limited progress on mental health in our industry since the last survey in 2020.
Everyone experiences life in a different way and has their own challenges. Whether that is because of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation or age among other things. We all cope with individual challenges in our own way.
Along with diversity, equity and inclusion goals, wellbeing is fundamental. We need to be flexible and adaptive in our solutions, create psychological safe spaces and encourage our leaders to be vulnerable and share their experiences.
Ultimately, we want to create an open and honest culture where people really can bring their best and true version of themselves to work.
This will help them flourish, create self-esteem, confidence and resilience. Give people purpose, make them feel valued and they will thrive. We need to be able to recognise everyone is different and put support mechanisms in place to account for this.
Mental Health Awareness Week is an opportunity for businesses to highlight the importance of wellbeing – but it’s not just about one week – and we need to continue to develop strategies to support our community.
Abta LifeLine is committed to supporting our travel community on its wellbeing journey, and I’m proud to reveal we will be funding an additional two industry volunteers to help expand our Get Travel Talking mental health champions network further.
These champions will be trained to provide much needed peer-to-peer support to colleagues struggling.
I’m also delighted that we are working on plans to bring industry leaders together later this year to start developing a comprehensive framework to support mental health and wellbeing across our sector.
By joining forces, we can positively impact the lives of travel professionals and foster a healthier, more compassionate, industry.
Trudie Clements is director of Abta LifeLine
