Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder and I'm delighted to be in the Westland Coffee Bar in London EC1 which is just around the corner from the global headquarters of Advantage the travelium, and I'm with the chief executive,

of course, Julia Lobuet, Said, who you will remember throughout the COVID crisis with very much

the spokesperson for the travel industry. Julia, nice to see you. Things have calmed down a bit,

but how are your members, the travel agents feeling?

Hi, Simon. They're feeling very positive, I think, given the three years that we've all had to go through, they are very optimistic at the future.

Trading has been exceptionally positive. It's bounced back, pent-up demand is there. And fundamentally, what's really important for me is that consumers are recognising the importance of booking through travel agents, given the disruptions and different issues that we've had in travel.

But a very positive future ahead. There are some headwinds ahead of us, I think it's safe to say. but generally speaking, they're feeling very positive right now.

Well, that's good to hear, but you talk about pent up demand.

A number of people would say there's slightly too much demand and not quite enough capacity.

I'm thinking here, we're just ahead of the strikes at Heathrow.

British Airways passengers are going to be affected at Terminal 5.

We've also got a strike involving the passport office,

which is going to concern people who perhaps got a summer holiday booked

and are looking to get their papers in order.

It all looks, well, slightly more like than headwinds, more a bit

like a tornado of problems still coming towards us. It's a real tsunami, in mind a tornado,

I think. And you're right. And it's very frustrating. It's frustrating for those of us in the industry

that all we want to do and all our members want to do is be able to provide consumers with great holidays. They've waited so long for them.

But what we have seen in a number of cases that the mitigation measures that have been put in

place, as you'll know from the airports, etc., have actually resulted in reducing any problem.

So I think the vast majority of people will be able to travel without disruption.

But of course,

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