From the publisher

THE release of AFTA’S annual report late last month made for sobering reading, with a $450,000 annual loss recorded for the year to 31 March 2020 – a period which included just two weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic. Apart from that the Federation’s activities during the 2019/20 financial year were pretty much on par with the previous 12 months, with about $2.2 million in income from membership and ATAS accreditation fees, as well as a $78,000 profit on the National Travel Industry Awards. However there was also a $430,000 “unrealised loss on financial assets” which partly reflected the dive in financial markets in the early days of the pandemic.

AFTA’S Board must be holding their breath that the organisation will be able to get some support in the upcoming Federal Budget, because for the current 2020/21 financial

year all of the Federation’s traditional sources of revenue have disappeared – no fees are being charged for membership or accreditation, and the National Travel Industry Awards didn’t happen either.

The AFTA annual general meeting was also an unusual affair this year, conducted via Zoom and for the first time in more than a decade there were nominations for two of the six Board seats which were up for re-election. However given that under the Federation’s constitution, “Concessional” rank-and- file travel agent members of AFTA have effectively given their votes to their Board representatives, it was no surprise that the result was a landslide locking out the two new nominees who each received about 50 votes – compared to more than 800 for the incumbents.

The AGM was also the first appearance for Shelley Beasley from Webjet, who was controversially appointed to a vacancy on the Board just weeks after the OTA joined the Federation. But despite outrage at the time, there was no discussion or general business raised at the AGM, which in typical fashion took just 11 minutes.