Penny Spencer is Managing Director of Sydney-based travel agency Spencer Travel. She also founded the TIME mentoring program for aspiring industry leaders in travel, tourism, hospitality and aviation.

My business is predominantly corporate travel. Head office is in Mascot in Bayside Council and we have three suburban shop-fronts largely dealing with the retail leisure business. When COVID-19 travel bans were imposed, we became like a grocery store with no groceries virtually overnight. We simply had nothing to sell, which was – and still is – quite devastating.

I cried for the first two weeks, grieving my business and my purpose. Then I pulled myself together, stood staff down, then stood them back up on three days a fortnight for full-time employees and one day for part-time staff. We completed tasks we never usually had time to do; reviewing operations, tidying databases, calling clients to ensure we didn’t just ‘disappear’. We also spent a lot of time processing refunds.

Early in the pandemic, we worked around-the-clock helping travellers, including unaccompanied minors, return home. We also assisted people in desperate situations leave Australia, for example when an overseas relative died, or when a couple’s surrogate baby was born internationally – things you don’t normally think about that were impacted by travel bans.

Job Keeper helped us retain most of our 70 staff, but it hasn’t saved the industry. We just hope interstate borders fully reopen soon and domestic travel resumes, and maybe a Trans-Tasman or even Pacific travel bubble by the September school holidays. Our research shows us people desperately want to travel, which is a good sign. General international travel is probably still a year away. Even then, we’ll face challenges because much of our revenue is back-ended where we are paid by airlines three months in arrears, after people have flown.

In 2010, I founded the Travel Industry Mentoring Experience to help aspiring industry leaders accelerate their careers. COVID-19 forced us to suspend the TIME initiative and we weren’t able to mark our 10-year anniversary on June 10. During the three-month hiatus, we offered online workshops to continue supporting participants through the difficult time. Our regular program just started back again this month.

Our motto remains strong during these difficult days; above & beyond.

Penny Spencer
Managing Director
Spencer Travel