The boss of a travel company hopes to be able to salvage at least some 2020 holiday trade as the lockdown eases.
Jonathan Hunt, who owns Roberts Travel Group in north west Leicestershire, said he had had to furlough 100 staff and already cancelled holidays up until early July.
He hopes his coach company will be able to offer some Christmas breaks at the very least, and could even provide some trips in the autumn – assuming the coronavirus doesn’t flare up again.
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He started his coach company 25 years ago with a single vehicle.
Since then he has built it up to an £8.2 million turnover business with 140 staff and 80 buses, providing holidays, school runs and running Leicestershire’s Park and Ride services.
He originally started out running ski holidays, but over the years has grown it to provide 海角视频 and European breaks, including day trips, cruise and rail holidays, London weekends and five day tours.
Holiday revenues now account for about a third of turnover, growing about 10 per cent year-on-year, helped by luxury vehicles and door-to-door pick-ups.
In the last few weeks he has brought back a couple of dozen staff from furlough to operate the Park and Ride services.
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Four redundancies had been made in the holiday and private hire sales team.
But, looking forward, he said there had been interest in some Christmas trips and he hoped hotels could start opening in September or October.
Mr Hunt said: “It’s quite a big business and we are one of the largest operators in the area, and had been heading for a £9 million turnover this year.
“We do everything you can offer with a bus or coach, including day trips on the back of shows such as Downton Abbey, Doc Martin in Port Isaac, Cornwall, or Padstow with teh Rick Stein connection. It’s interesting to see how the print comes off the page.
“There are also the favourites that are popular every year such as Eastbourne and Llandudno, but we have also moved with the times, hence the growth.
“During lockdown we had around 100 staff on furlough and we were almost at a standstill within the first 10 days as schools and other services stopped.
“We cancelled holidays up to the end of June and early July and offered everybody a refund - we decided we didn’t want to lose trust by offering credit notes, although some were happy with that.
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“As soon as we saw what was coming we moved our 2020 brochure over to next year, contracting all the same hotels and were able to transfer 25 per cent of the holidays we had booked to 2021.
“It’s been important to maintain our relationship with our customers. We’re ABTA protected and part of the Bonded Coach Holidays scheme.
“If I’m honest, I don’t think we will be operating holidays in August, but we don’t want to cancel too far ahead just in case something changes. We are cancelling a bit at a time, which is allowing us to manage it all.
“I would like to think we will be doing holidays this year though.
“There will be a burst of people wanting to get away from home at some point and we hope to at least be able to do short breaks, places of interest and even day trips, and hope that will be by the end of the year.
“As a business we’ve been fairly frugal over the years and never really borrowed a huge amount.
“We could go a long while if we needed to, and I think it will be 12 to 18 months before the volume of hotel work returns.”