On Wednesday (1 April), chancellor Rishi Sunak said an early payment of some £3.4 billion had been made to local authorities on Friday (27 March) which should allow them to start distributing cash grants, ranging from £10,000 to £25,000, to those businesses that applied for support.
Wednesday also marked the start of the 2020/21 business rates "holiday" for businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors with a rateable value of up to £51,000 – including many high street travel agencies – while other support has been made available to the self-employed.
Businesses have also been granted respite to “furlough” workers – place them on temporarily leave for a three-month period with 80% of their wages, up to a value of £2,500 a month, covered by the government at a later date. Hays Travel and Tui are among travel’s larger businesses to have taken advantage of the scheme so far.
TTG has been detailing the support available to the trade to weather the storm, but we’d like to know how these government funding pledges are filtering down to those operating in the travel sector.
Please let us know in the poll below what it has been like accessing the various support measures outlined in recent weeks – and whether the concessions go far enough.
Don’t forget to leave a comment in the comments section below too if you have any further thoughts on the situation, or drop us an email to feedback@ttgmedia.com.
