Foreign travel: Stenhousemuir's Stelar Travel celebrates five years in business

John Barr launched Stelar Travel in the town’s Main Street in January 2018 working alongside employee Kay Sommerville, and both said the agency quickly established itself as an important part of the community.

However, the last three years, while tough for everyone due to the Covid pandemic and all the restrictions it brought, for the travel trade it has been a particularly difficult time.

John, who owns the business and has 40 years experience in travel, said he has never experienced anything like it before.

He said: “There have been several difficult periods for the travel trade in the last couple of decades: SARS, 9/11, two ash clouds and airplane engine issues, but nothing like this. This has been the biggest challenge in all my years in the business.

"We did have to protest at Holyrood twice but were delighted when the Scottish Government came up with a couple of grants.”

John and others in the travel trade’s main frustration was that they were classed as retail rather than the leisure and hospitality industry, meaning they weren’t able to access the same level of support. This was despite the sector drawing in almost £2 billion a year and supporting more than 26,000 jobs.

He added: “I know people who had to use their savings and dip into their pensions to keep their businesses afloat. During the last three years, I’ve heard of four agents who went out of business – it’s four too many but it could have been more.”

But the team at Stelar are hopeful that things are looking up with the lifting of so many restrictions on travel and people’s desire to go abroad again.

As a council member of the Scottish Passenger Agents’ Association, John said while attending its agm in December there was a much more optimistic mood than there had been last summer.

"I would say the confidence to travel is back with about half the population,” he said, “while others are saying that they are going to wait another year before planning to go abroad.

"And whereas last year, people who wanted to travel were asking us ‘where can I go’, they are now saying ‘where can I go to get a good deal’. We’re finding that people are wanting to go to Spain, Portugal and Greece but Turkey is offering best value, as is Bulgaria. But cruising is popular again, as is the USA and Far East.”

John and Kay are delighted to have clients coming back into the agency and on Saturday held a small event to thank everyone for their support.

He said: “Without clients we wouldn’t be here and it is very humbling. When we opened I thought if we could get established within 18 months that would be great but within six months we were getting a lot of referrals which was amazing.

"They’ve also stuck by us through this difficult time and we’re happy to be able to help them now plan their future trips.”