Travel agents engagement with customers surges during pandemic

ABTA has unveiled new data which shows record levels of engagement with Members and consumers, indicating the extent to which the coronavirus pandemic has impacted the travel sector for individuals and for companies.

During what has been an exceptionally challenging time for the industry and customers, ABTA has significantly increased its activity with the aim of ensuring both Members and their customers receive accurate information and guidance on various aspects of the crisis, including changes to FCO advice, repatriation information and refunds for cancelled holidays.

New figures show over one million views of the abta.com ‘Coronavirus advice for customers’ page since it went live at the start of February with an average dwell time of 8.5 minutes.

Mark Tanzer, ABTA Chief Executive, said: “This has been an exceptionally difficult time for our Members and their customers. The industry has never experienced a crisis of this scale and severity, we’re continuing to do all we can to lobby political decision-makers for support.

“We’re also putting enormous effort into keeping our Members and their customers informed about what is going on and ensuring they have the latest detailed and accurate information and guidance. The sheer speed and scale of developments has made this challenging, but that is our job as an Association and we will continue to do so while this crisis continues.”

Furthermore, to keep up with demand for information among customers, ABTA has added additional resource to its Customer Support team which fields phone calls and emails from customers and continues to work remotely whilst the office remains closed. With a year-on-year increase of 175% in call volumes waiting times remain low.