Travel agencies gear up as Albertans look to post-pandemic trips

Edmonton travel agent Lesley Paull says she hopes her industry has reached the end of the roller-coaster.

The last year has brought with it sudden cancellations, repatriations, quarantines and testing with travel agents scrambling to make sense of successive waves of COVID-19 and the ever-shifting international landscape.

But the head of Paull Travel is among Albertan travel agents who have seen bookings boost in recent weeks as the province and country moves to reopen.

Paull partially attributes the uptick to vaccinations.

"People are really confident and I think they're just really sick of being at home, honestly."

Her dozen staff members have been working part-time three days a week but Paull expects they'll return to full-time hours soon for a busy summer of bookings.

"But booking for the future, not for travelling," she said. Many are looking ahead to 2022, Paull said, with some vacations already sold out.

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Hidar Elmais, a manager at Travel Gurus, says the Edmonton-based agency has already seen an explosion in calls. He said May was the highest month in sales since the pandemic began.

The first 10 days of June saw a 60 per cent jump in bookings compared to the same month last year.

"It's been a whirlwind," Elmais said. He said the agency is trying to bring staff back from vacation to deal with the massive influx.

Many clients are calling to get information about rules and regulations around international travel — a constant struggle for agents to keep up with themselves.

"There's a lot of different information out there that we kind of got to put together and make sure that our clients don't get hassled at the airport," he said.

The latest came Wednesday when the federal government announced it would soon allow fully vaccinated Canadians and permanent residents to skip quarantine hotel stays, though it did not give a clear timeline.

"Which just made everyone call us and ask us if we knew something that they didn't know," Elmais said.

Weddings and reunions

Destination weddings are also making a return, according to Keana Sellars with Love at First Travel. She says an increase four to six months ago has sped up in recent weeks.

"I'm talking, like, between 20 and 30 inquiries on our website per week."

Destination weddings are typically booked a year in advance, Sellars said, but she's now seeing packages two or even three years down the line.

"I definitely think people are wanting to book earlier in hopes that we can travel and everything settles down," Sellars said.

She said resorts adopted safety measures early on but it remains to be seen what will happen with occupancy limits — now on average sitting between 20 and 30 per cent — as demand increases.

In addition to destination weddings, Elmais said Travel Gurus has also seen a lot of people looking to reconnect in parts of Asia and the Middle East.

"A lot of people are just really trying to get to where their family is," he said.

Many airlines are offering flexible bookings with free changes and free cancellations. Elmais said now is the time to book new vacations or use travel credits, before costs catch up with demand.

"We anticipate that the pricing of travel is going to go way up," he said.