Last week, agencies sprung into action as Hurricane Melissa headed slowly towards Jamaica, eventually making landfall last Tuesday (28 October). 

We had a family of five at Beaches Negril, and had a Sandals booking due to depart on Tuesday, but fortunately that was cancelled.

I’m frustrated that the airlines and operators were still happy to fly people out to the Caribbean, and just referred to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) advice.

On 21 October, we knew a tropical storm was heading towards Jamaica, and three days later, on 24 October, that it was going to be a major hurricane and on course to hit the island.

You’ve got to ask yourself why – even up to the Sunday before the hurricane – UK airlines were still flying tourists out there? They knew what was about to happen. 

For me, this shows a lack of care about these suppliers’ customers. It was at this point that alternative options should have been given. Customers should have been offered amendments and the opportunity to cancel their Caribbean holiday. 

Tour operators and airlines need to have more of a duty of care and be more proactive.

If I think back to the wildfires in Los Angeles, or volcanoes in Iceland, again, we were still flying people out there in the days before.

The FCDO’s role

Now I hate to even mention the term "credit notes" – it makes me want to have a glass of wine! – but from an operator and an airline perspective, it's very difficult for them to be able to refund people in full because the FCDO aren't going to say to the public "you can't go".

There must be agents out there that were getting calls week before last saying "I'm really worried about going to Jamaica", but as travel agents we have to say "if you cancel, you’ll lose all your money".

Ideally, what we need to be able to do, is if I had customers flying out, say, on the Saturday [before Hurricane Melissa was due], I'd phone them on the Thursday and say "we've heard that a hurricane is heading towards Jamaica, you’ve got a couple of options". These should be: 

1.    The airline’s still flying, so you can go ahead with the holiday as planned. 
2.    We can offer you a credit note for the full value of your booking to be used for the next 12 months.

As travel agents we need to play our part too – making sure we're saying to people that are booking to travel in August, September, October: "You do realise it's hurricane season".

I think we currently do a good job informing customers of the possibilities. 

‘Only going to get worse’

There have been more natural disasters in the last 10 years than there were in the previous 20.

The UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) will take place in Brazil in a couple of weeks' time and one of the things they're going to be discussing is the warming oceans, which obviously leads to more hurricanes and other natural disasters. 

If you were an authority on the island of Jamaica, you want to be thinking about your citizens first and foremost. But unfortunately, you're not – you're thinking about the international tourists, because if anything happens to them that's really bad for the reputation of your island.

So us taking preventative action to potentially stop thousands of people flying out [in advance of a natural disaster] is far better for them, because it means they can concentrate all their resources on citizens rather families staying in all-inclusive hotels.

We need a better plan in place, because natural disasters like this are only going to get worse.