Agents seem to be stuck between a rock and a hard place

I CAME to travel late in life but I have had 15 wonderful years as a cruise agent – with a focus on small and river cruise ships. Having previously run care homes, frankly, selling travel was a pleasure with great perks! However the past three weeks have and continue to be very challenging and stressful, with COVID-19 affecting virtually every booking – even into 2021.

We agents seem to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. Our clients want to extend final payment dates as long as possible because they are not confident in travel and want to keep cash in the bank. Meanwhile, if their holiday has been cancelled they read that by law they are entitled to a cash refund within 14 days. But in many cases they're only being offered a voucher, since operators are desperate to hang onto as much cash as they can in order to survive, and if they do offer refunds it's often with no commission protection for agents.

It's a lose-lose situation and there are very few new enquiries which would help bring in some commission in the short term.

I usually comment that being in travel is not as stressful as running care homes – travel's not a matter of life and death, after all. tragically, that isn't the case at the moment. We all hope that there will be an end to the current crisis – but I may well be moving into a care home for some respite by then!