With travel agents not receiving any income until the customer actually travels, agents are faced with refunding bookings made pre-pandemic which meant that once credit card refund charges are taken into account, agents have had negative income since Autumn 2019, according to the association.
A third of SPAA members have taken a second job since March 2020 to help their businesses survive and 7% of these members have taken more than three jobs.
Almost 70% of travel agency owners surveyed have had "virtually no income" since the start of the pandemic.
