By: Nyima Sillah
Travel Agencies are still bearing the brunt of the coronavirus outbreak after eight months of no proper business they are complaining of low sales of air tickets as many European countries are back on lockdown, again.
Momodou Darboe, staff of Sillah Traveling Agency, said: “we are seriously affected by the pandemic because the numbers of people that use to buy tickets have dropped and these are people who run our business.”
“We were on a lockdown for six months because of the government regulations and during the lockdown we had to pay rent, salary, tax and other utilities from the savings which is killing our business,” he added.
He said his travel agency is trying to recover the losses of the lockdown, adding “we are struggling very hard as we have to engage ourselves into other activities in other to keep the business moving like it used to be.”
“Two months back we received forms from The Gambia Tourism Board to fill so that we may have a bailout package from them but since then, nothing has been done. We are Gambians that invest money in the country and also employed Gambian youths by completing the tasks of the government. So in a trying time like this, they should consider us,” he said.
He urged the government to help them with a bailout in order to keep their businesses operating.
Owusu Asante, staff of Easy Traveling Agency, said since the pandemic started there is no ticket reservation and that has really affected their business. He noted that if no flight is coming in or going out, they will not be able to sell tickets because their business is based on ticket selling.
Jainaba Jabbie, Starion Traveling Agency, expressed hope for a better ticket sale next year because Covid-19 has seriously hit their business because they are not selling much this year compared to the previous years.
“We sell tickets worldwide but since the start of Covid-19, we hardly sell European tickets because some countries are still on lockdown so we mostly sell turkey and air Senegal,” She said.