Ruth Malcolm looks up travel packages at her office on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021. (Photo Courtesy Derek Brade)

By Chris Brown

All their bags are packed

‘Die-hards’ want to take off: Business is picking up for local travel agent

Nov 5, 2021 | 2:18 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – After more than 18 months of travel restrictions people are itching to board planes, mostly the ones bound for sunny destinations and beaches.

Ruth Malcolm, owner of Medicine Hat’s The Travel Agent Next Door, says business is picking up with vaccination rates rising and restrictions being relaxed.

“I don’t expect it to really, really vamp up until about 2024, late. They are starting (to look) but for me, it’s my die-hards – ‘I want to travel and I don’t care.’ And it’s just like me. I already have mine booked so I’m going in February, you can’t stop me,” Malcolm said.

She said you can’t keep the die-hard travellers down.

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“They just want to go. For me personally, I just want to feel the sand in my feet, I want to hear the Mexican music in the background I want to see my kids playing on the beach, in the pool, all the rest of that good stuff.”

Mexico is the most popular destination and Malcolm says she has a few bookings to Europe from December and into the summer.

When she’s working with clients Malcolm makes sure they know the conditions around refunds and everything that will be expected of them upon arrival at their destination and to come back home.

Malcolm says needing to show a negative PCR test for COVID-19 to return to Canada is the biggest concern among her clients.

Advocacy groups are working to get that changed and Malcolm suggests a rapid test at the airport upon re-entry into Canada.

“We can at least quarantine at home, instead of down in Mexico for another 10 days or down in Italy for another 10 days which comes out of pocketbook,” she says. “Even if they change it to the rapid test would be great. I would pay $40 but I’m a little leery paying $150 U.S. per person.”

Canada’s chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam says the current policy is “actively being looked at.”