Advantage Travel has called last week’s confusion around whether or not holidaymakers could still travel to Tenerife “chaos”.
Advantage Travel has called the confusion over holidays to Tenerife last week “chaos for… travel agent members”.
Kelly Cookes, Leisure Director at Advantage commented: “The confusion on whether Tenerife was about to close its borders created absolute chaos for our travel agent members and their customers, both for passengers on the ground in Tenerife and for those departing imminently.
“With different messages being shared across consumer and social media including a lack of clarity on whether airspace would close, travel agent members were thrown into turmoil trying to advise their customers on whether they should attempt to come home, or indeed travel.
“Despite the Canaries being removed from the air corridor last week, many travel agents still had clients planning to travel for the festive period, and one member had to contact a client on three separate occasions with three different messages.
“This is not only confusing for everyone involved, but also damaging at a time when consumer confidence is already at an all-time low. Thankfully, borders have not closed, but this demonstrates how communication is absolutely key, and early clarification from destinations and governments will help prevent issues like this arising in future.”
Tony Mann at Idle Travel commented: “The only way I can describe what happened and the confusion around the Tenerife announcement was that it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Having to admit to my customers that I didn’t have a clue what was going on is not how I work and I did wonder if we needed to totally stop selling last minute holidays to avoid things like this happening in future, despite the fact we have successfully managed to do this throughout the summer, even with the ongoing issues the industry has faced. What a way to finish the year – an absolute nightmare of stress and emotions.”
