In our last Travel News poll, we asked our travel consultant readers to give us their feedback on what they believed the greatest obstacles were to their selling forward bookings for travel to foreign countries for the second half of 2021.
Lack of access due to red lists, lack of flight routes and the need to quarantine on arrival at the destination were the greatest travel passion-killers for agents’ clients. Of the respondents, 62% gave these as the most common reasons that clients do not want to travel abroad.
The second-most-important reason for clients’ reluctance to book was that they fear virus flare-ups, lockdowns, and new border closures while in destination; 13% of responses opted for this.
The slow vaccination programme got 10% of responses, and the fear of cancellation without refunds was the fourth most popular choice.
Not one single respondent chose the option, ‘Poor service to agents, skeleton staff in reservations’ being an obstacle to bookings. Does this show how empathy has spread across the industry? We think so!
