We’re keen to understand your experiences of accessing government funding – such as the Additional Restrictions Grants – as well as booking levels following the relaxation of travel requirements, and the employment picture across the industry following the end of furlough. We are running a new survey to gather this information to use in our lobbying activities ahead of the next strategic review.

Insight and feedback from Members throughout the pandemic have been crucial to shaping our lobbying work and informing our engagement with Government. Your feedback has been invaluable in helping ABTA demonstrate how the pandemic and government policy has affected travel businesses. 

I strongly encourage you all to complete our latest survey so we can present an accurate and up to date account of the situation facing travel companies right now. You can complete the latest survey online via this link. Deadline for responses is 5pm Thursday 25 November. Businesses in Northern Ireland do not need to reply, as we asked these questions ahead of the recent hearing in the Northern Ireland Executive. However, the survey does generally apply to all other Members.

We will use the information to boost our calls for further support ahead of the next strategic review of travel and with our engagement with Government. All data collected is anonymous and will be aggregated before it is shared with officials.

AGM and Regional meetings

I was pleased that we could hold ABTA’s AGM and latest Council of Regions at our office yesterday, it was good to be able to come together in person. 

At the AGM, there was just one resolution which was to reappoint the auditors, which was passed. I also gave an overview of where we are as an industry and organisation, and our future plans. You can watch a recording of the AGM here.

We have also been holding our Regional Business Meetings virtually over the last couple of weeks – with one more each in Scotland and Northern Ireland to go. Here Members have a had a chance to hear from ABTA on a range of areas including our lobbying activity, services for Members and the upcoming Travel with Confidence campaign. The panel discussions, on whether Members are seeing an increase in interest from customers in sustainable tourism, have been really engaging and interesting.

Mark Tanzer, Chief Executive