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I HAD lunch with two of Australia’s hardworking travel agents the other day.

Apart from being delightful company, they were able to give me an up-to-date assessment of where their profession sits and the state of the industry as a whole.

I’m pleased to report that both said that they had “never been busier” and at times were actually unable to deal with inquiries due to the volume of work coming in.

That was the good news…

We also talked a lot about the bad days when COVID forced them to deal solely with refunds and the worries of consumers who thought they might lose considerable sums of money.

You could see that these mental scars were still fresh, but thankfully both had emerged somewhat stronger, wiser and (relatively) unscathed from the ghastly experience.

“It was a learning experience – not one we really ever want to go through again – but an experience nonetheless,” said one.

I’ve written before about the resilience of the travel industry and those that work within it. It was good to see that two such dedicated, skilled and caring individuals were reaping the rewards of their persistence and endurance.

And talking about lunch and travel (yes, tenuous link, I know!), you’ll detect a definite flavour to the May issue of Traveltalk.