Huntley Travel sees uptick in bookings for 2021
In light of the COVID-19 vaccine slowly making its way through the Huntley community in the first phases of distribution, travel agencies like Huntley Travel eagerly anticipate an increase in business in the months to come, as the vaccine comes closer to being available to the general public.
Managing owner of Huntley Travel, Bernice Bakley, was delighted to share the news of the new reservations she was working on after facing many bleak months of uncertainty.
“It’s definitely, you know, a hopeful feeling. We still realize that 2021 is not going to thoroughly recover our business and we honestly don’t foresee a large amount of influx of travel until probably summer, but you know, there are countries that are open. There are places you can currently travel [to], so those people that are interested in traveling, we are working hard to help them,” Bakley said.
Bakley explained that despite having been working with at least three of the agency’s regular clients in the past week alone, obstacles like expired passports pose a dilemma for others eager to travel due to the significant delay times of getting a passport renewal.
Yet even with some bumps in the road, Bakley and her team of travel agents look forward to the day the COVID-19 vaccine becomes available to the public.
“I am working on things for people to travel February and March. You know, whether it’d be Florida or Mexico or things like that. But I’m saying a true, where people are really, truly going [to travel], I think that’ll be probably more into May [and] June,” Bakley said. “Even the cruise lines for the most part, they’ve canceled sailing all the way through March at this point. Some have already done it through May. So, we’re not exactly sure when the cruise ships will really return to water, but we’re hopeful that the summer will be the timeline for the cruise lines but nobody really knows that yet.”
As a parting message for those looking into traveling sometime in the near future, Bakley advised, “hopefully if you’re planning to travel you do use a travel agent because we are here to help you. There are many people out there that really felt a pain that they could never recover with those online [agencies] like, BookIt.com. So, that didn’t help people but myself and other agencies like mine, have been working hard all through this and we’re still working hard for our clients that are, you know, that were affected by last year and they’re trying to re-book for this year or next year.”
“So, just be careful and use a local agent and you know, they’re going to work hard for you, I guarantee it.”
