The Prime Minister’s announcement on a roadmap for lifting lockdown and the Chancellor’s Budget have both been eagerly anticipated by the travel sector.
 
The Budget yesterday did deliver a degree of good news for business. We know that the extension of furlough, business rates relief and VAT reductions will help many Members through what will continue to be difficult months ahead, which is why ABTA and the Save Future Travel Coalition have been pushing so hard for these to be extended. They follow on from the recent announcement about the delay of repayment for bounce back loans, which was also something ABTA had been calling for.
 
But the Chancellor’s announcements fell short of what the travel industry needs. The Restart Grants should offer some help to retail travel agents but there are a number of fundamental issues the Budget doesn’t address:

• The Government’s continued blind-spot concerning the impact international travel restrictions have on businesses’ ability to generate income.
• The focus on retail premises means businesses including tour operators, online travel companies and home-based workers remain shut out of much needed grant support.
• The need to support all parts of the travel supply chain – making sure tour operators are supported so that travel agents have something to sell.
• In the coming weeks and months we will continue to push for tailored financial support to be provided to all travel companies.

 
Global Travel Taskforce

We were pleased the Government responded to our calls to develop a specific roadmap forward for travel by reconvening the Global Travel Taskforce.
 
We are involved and engaged with the taskforce and have already had several conversations and meetings with Government about the work of the taskforce, the areas they are looking at and how we can feed into that to ensure travel agents’ and tour operators’ views are heard. 
 
This week we have begun discussing with Members the proposals we intend to put forward to the taskforce. We’re keen to gather views from across the breadth of ABTA membership and are developing a particular session where travel agents will be able to provide input. Further details will follow shortly.
 
We continue with our lobbying activity and, today, we have hosted a roundtable event which brings together representatives from across relevant government departments and the Save Future Travel Coalition to discuss the pressing issues facing the industry.
 
On a different note, I wanted to say thank you for completing the Member survey.  We are currently analysing the findings and will be feeding these in to our planning.

Mark Tanzer, Chief Executive