York travel agents join national campaign for international travel to reopen
Conexo Travel in Haxby says they've had zero income in 15 months.
Local business Conexo Travel is calling on Government to safely reopen travel and provide financial support.
Conexo Travel - based in Haxby, York - is taking part in the Travel Day of Action (Wednesday 23rd June) to highlight the ongoing challenges facing the sector, and the risks to businesses and livelihoods.
In a statement the team there says: "The Travel Day of Action is a pan-industry event – bringing together people and businesses from across the aviation and travel industries - including those who operate and organise overseas and inbound holidays, visits to family and friends and business trips abroad.
"For Conexo Travel, we have had no income for 15 months and this places our business at risk of not being able to survive any continued travel restrictions without some sort of support for our industry. This jeopardises 5 jobs, and would remove a valuable independent local business which has been looking after customers in the area for 15 years.
"The pandemic has been a catastrophe for the wider travel industry, closing borders, and even making most travel to and from the UK illegal for months on end. Data from ABTA estimates that as many as 195K jobs have been lost or are at risk within the travel industry.
"Without a meaningful summer season – a crucial period of the year for travel businesses – many thousands of livelihoods are at stake, as well as the ability of the travel sector to recover and reconnect the UK to the world".
Owner David Carruthers says: "The lack of international travel puts businesses under enormous pressure. We have no other means of generating income. If people don’t travel then we don’t make any money, it is a simple as that. The summer season is such a critical time for our business so we desperately need Government to safely open up overseas travel.
"Government also needs to give some tailored support to the travel sector. We haven’t had anywhere need the financial support that other businesses have had, yet we have less opportunity to generate income. The situation is beyond desperate. We need the Government to urgently help us".
The Travel Day of Action has support from the UK’s major airlines and tour operators as well as hundreds of small independent travel agents and leisure and business travel agents. Collectively they are calling on the UK Government to:
• Allow international travel to return safely and in a risk managed way by properly implementing the Global Travel Taskforce’s plan for a traffic-light system, by expanding the green list in line with the evidence and making restrictions more proportionate, whilst keeping a strong red list to guard against variants. They've also called for a removing of testing and quarantine requirements for fully vaccinated individuals travelling from green and amber countries.
• Bring forward a package of tailored financial support, including extension of furlough support until April 2022, recognising that the travel sector’s ability to trade and generate income is much slower than first anticipated and more gradual than for businesses in the domestic economy.
We've contacted the Government for a statement in response to the claims and concerns raised.