"As soon as the borders opened a couple of weeks ago, the floodgates opened," Vincent George, of Vincent George Travel, said.
Much of this stemmed from people wanting to reconnect with family they had not seen for up to three years.
"Over the past two weeks, ithas got to the stage where it’s getting back to normal pre-Covid activity," he said.
It was not all good news, though, as the upsurge had put "extreme pressure" on travel agents and airlines.
"Capacity is very tight," MrGeorge said, which explained why airfares were expensive.
Some travel agencies — "Not us, though" — had even stopped taking clients.
An industry statement to travel agents noted that in June, "the available airline seats . . . for sale were 36% of pre-Covid seats".
Last month, it had increased to 49% and in August was expected to be 53%.
Problems at Heathrow had caused the London airport to limit daily passenger capacity to 100,000 and cancel some flights to cope.
Pre-Covid, Heathrow had 5000 staff; now it had 2000, Mr George said.
In Dunedin, the issue was compounded by the closure of several travel agencies, including Mosgiel’s Flight Centre.
"A lot of our market still likes the security that comes from using a travel agent," Vincent George Travel co-owner Rosann Connolly-George said.
"Our tours for next year, including our ladies’ one, are almost sold out."
Although he had no quarrel with people using the internet to book travel, Mr George said it could be more difficult to see all the options and different countries’ rules around vaccination, and if something went wrong, a travel agent was better placed to get things sorted quickly.
"Above all, my advice is to book early or you may miss out," he said.
Ms Connolly-George agreed, saying that for northern hemisphere travel, she advised booking six months to a year ahead of the planned departure date.
