‘Huge value’ in holidaying through an agency due to ‘complexities of travel moving forward’

Holidayers should engage a travel agent before planning a trip due to the uncertain nature of travel due to fluctuating coronavirus restrictions, says Travel Agents Association of NZ’s Brent Thomas. He told Sky News journey has been made more complicated during the pandemic, and flexibility in planning a trip is necessary.

“There’s a huge amount of value going to a travel agent given the complexities of travel going forward.”

Mr. Thomas said the number of agents in New Zealand had dropped from 5000 down to 1500 throughout the pandemic, “so we are hoping to recruit some of those people back as the volume comes from New Zealanders traveling to Australia and Australians coming to New Zealand”.

“Australia’s always been our number one destination, so we’ll certainly see a significant amount of two-way traffic across the Tasman,” he said. “This will probably bring us back to say 20 or 30 percent of our normal volume, so we’ve still got a significant amount of space to go before we get anywhere normal.”