"It felt like a stab in the back, like every day was a new challenge," she said.

Ms Coburn took a leap of faith when she became a travel agent just three years ago.

It was something that had been "eating away" at her, until she finally took the plunge seeing that Ararat was "an hour away" from any travel agencies.

Everything was exciting, then COVID hit.

READ MORE:

"It's like building it up again from the ground, getting the word out," Ms Coburn said.

The travel industry was one of the first to take a hit when the pandemic spread across the globe, and will likely be one of the last to recover.

Nevertheless, Ms Coburn counts herself among lucky because she was a solo practitioner, already working from home and was able to secure JobKeeper, something she said she is incredibly grateful for.

"I don't have the overheads that a lot of the bigger companies have, I don't have any employees," she said.

"But at the same time, I had the same costs of our system and I still had the same losses."

"All the money I'd earned in 2019 I had to pay back in commissions and refunds," she said.

"Copious amounts of refunds,"

"It seems to be a never-ending story for a lot of the cancellations."

Federal support for struggling travel agents has been included in the government's Consumer Travel Support program, however the program's first round was widely criticised.

"It was a bit of a balls-up," Ms Coburn said, adding that the funding confusion was a "sore point" for many travel agents.

MORE NEWS:

The program's second round of funding, announced earlier this month, includes $130 million for travel agencies in the Wimmera-Mallee region.

Dr Anne Webster, Member for Mallee, acknowledged the program's first round funding was less than fair, as it was calculated by a business's profits rather than the overall value of transactions.

This meant "a lot of bigger players benefited" according to Dr Webster.

Dr Webster said concerns raised to her personally by travel agents were taken into consideration for the second round and the criteria was changed to reflect the importance of supporting small businesses..

"I hope some of our local businesses will feel better supported this time around," Dr Webster said.

Ms Coburn said travel agents across Australia are in limbo at the moment.

"Travel agents around Australia are hold our breath every time the the prime minster opens his mouth, to see if anything new is coming our way," Ms Coburn said.

With the opening of a travel bubble to New Zealand on Monday there's hope on the horizon for the industry, however Ms Coburn said she is hedging her bets.

"I purposely haven't focused on it yet, mainly waiting for any speedbumps along the road to happen in the first two-three weeks," she said.

"But I am planning to ramp up interest for New Zealand later in the year, over the ski season especially."

Business is picking back up slowly, Ms Coburn said, but until borders open again the industry will never be what it was.

In the meantime, Ms Coburn isn't going anywhere.

"I'm here for the long haul," she said.

If you are seeing this message you are a loyal digital subscriber to The Ararat Advertiser, as we made this story available only to subscribers. Thank you very much for your support and allowing us to continue telling Ararat's story. We appreciate your support of journalism in our great city.