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FRONTLINE


Caerphilly-based Not Just Travel homeworker EMMA SUMMERILL is balancing her job with looking after her husband, who has been struck down with coronavirus, and her six-year-old daughter, who has a serious heart condition.


My husband works for the ambulance service and he was struck down with coronavirus. We’re on 14


days’ isolation and I am waiting to get it. You see your future ahead of you. We’re still sharing a bed and a bathroom – it is coming


my way. Once it is here, what can you do about it? He said it felt like he was breathing in sandpaper. He is


feeling better but was rather unwell for a few days. It is a bit of an unknown with my daughter. If she is going to get it now at least it will be when the hospitals are not swamped. I’m working all hours to rebook customers and cancel existing bookings, and trying to do a lot of my work in the morning. There are less bookings coming in and we’re also losing bookings to cancellations. We don’t know how it’s going to end. I don’t have any customers abroad, thank goodness.


Staff at Tailor Made Travel branches are working from behind closed doors. ALEX WILLIAMS and VANESSA YOUNG have been locked in their Whitchurch branch. It’s a strange feeling at the moment. We kind of feel like lab rats working away behind


Alex Williams and Vanessa Young


glass. There are only two of us in our shop and Vanessa and I are more than happy. Our clients are calling us and are all very positive and


supportive of what we are doing. We were concerned this was going to create alarm, but it’s had the opposite effect and they’re glad we’re listening to the government’s advice. Bookings-wise we’ve had a handful of cancellations but on the whole we’ve transferred bookings to later dates. We have had some enquiries for new bookings too, and are working on a group departure to Sweden for 2022. Customers are obviously concerned and asking for our opinion and we are trying to reassure them as best we can. We have many clients who are currently on cruise ships


Ashley Quint


ASHLEY QUINT, travel consultant at TravelTime World, is working from home instead of in his agency’s office in Berkhamsted following


the government’s advice. Just over two weeks ago, we moved from our shop to


an office and updated our technology. One of the benefits is that it has enabled me to work


from home. If we were still at the shop our phone system would not have let us do what we’re doing now. I work in a spare room in my house,which I share with my mum. She’s not been well so being here means I can help her or do the shopping. I am trying to structure my day and take a break to go for a walk. You just need to think about how to live day-to-day.


In the past when there has been a crisis you’ve felt you’ve had to go into the office. At least now we can work flexibly and take calls earlier or later in the day. Operators are working later as well. This situation is certainly forcing us to have a


different ‘vision’ in terms of how we do things. Most of what I’m doing is speaking to clients over the phone or on email. The biggest challenge has been getting people home and trying to rebook holidays.


and we are in constant contact with them, and they’re grateful for our updates. We have an amazing team behind us and we know we will battle on and come out of this stronger than ever.


Deben Travel is open, but staff are making sure there is ‘plenty of distance’ between them and customers, explains REBECCA LEETE, who has worked at the branch in Woodbridge, Suffolk, on and off for six years. It was scary, especially last Saturday when everything was changing every half an hour. We have to take


it seriously. Customers are not sitting right in front of us – especially if they are elderly. And we’re social distancing as a team, making sure only one of us at a time uses the back of the shop where we have lunch or make a cup of tea. We have fun, make jokes and play music – the mood is good. There are normally about four of us in the office. We had one guy whose Jet2 flight to Fuerteventura had to turn around when the plane was over France. It landed at Stansted and he went home. He said it was the quickest holiday he’d ever had. When it comes to refunds, we’re trying to manage customer expectations. It could be months. It’s hard. A lot of people want to travel but it is difficult to know how long [the pandemic] is going to last.


Rebecca Leete


travelweekly.co.uk


26 MARCH 2020


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