They are still paying rent and bills but have had almost no income since March.

For travel agents, problems started in January as bookings to China and Hong Kong were cancelled.

"We didn't know it was going to last this long, we had no idea," Leonie Clay from My Travel Expert said.

"Back then we though by July we'd be back up and running."

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In their decades working as travel agents Leonie Clay and Julie Woodall have stared down a lot of challenges, including SARS, but nothing has compared to COVID.

They have dealt with volcano ash clouds, Bali bombings, September 11 attacks, global financial crisis, Ansett collapse and more.

"All those things we've survived and we've come back stronger and stronger but this one has kicked us for six," Mrs Woodall said.

"All of our work that we did last year to get our profit for this year has gone, it's all cancelled," Mrs Clay said.

"We've refunded millions and we've refunded our profit."

With only NSW-wide travel available, there is a lot less to sell. While some people have been booking interstate for 2021, the numbers are low.

For Shoalhaven agents to survive the pandemic they need domestic bookings.

"We hope that people will actually recognise that a travel agent is the best person to look after them - Julie has rebooked a few people for interstate travel then had to undo it again," Mrs Clay said.

"When we are making reservations now we make sure we use flexible booking fares and flexible accommodation rates so that if the people are forced to change it will be an easy thing to do."

To try and scrape in more dollars they have been selling second-hand books and are looking for someone to sublet their store.

"We've got to try and think outside the square now and work out how we are going to pay rent," Mrs Woodall said.

"Now all we can sell is intrastate people think - I don't want to bother you with something like that," Mrs Clay said.

"Nothing is a bother because we'll actually earn money out of that two nights accommodation in Sydney which will go towards paying our rent."

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While a lot of customers have been understanding, others have not.

"Before when people used to cancel it was six-eight weeks we would get the money now it's taking over three months," Mrs Woodall said.

"The airlines are refunding billions of dollars and it takes a long time because they're not set up to process this amount of refunds," Mrs Clay said.

"Their systems were never designed to do that and they don't employ enough staff that know how to do that."

There is money to be made in cancellations and often it takes longer to cancel than it did to book.

"Unraveling a booking takes longer than actually making a booking.

"In the meantime the government has set up JobKeeper but that doesn't pay our rent, electricity, pay for our reservation and accounting systems."

Leona and Julie are hoping government will come to the party and offer more support to travel agents.

"Hopefully all the Premiers will make a sensible decision and open the borders and then we'll be able to travel interstate and maybe into New Zealand, Japan and the South Pacific islands," Mrs Clay said.

"Qantas, Virgin, Helloworld and Flight Centre are campaigning the government to open the borders and offer a industry-specific support package".

Gilmore MP Fiona Phillips spoke in parliament urging the government not to let the travel agents fall through the cracks.

Leonie and Julie hoped other local politicians would also support them in their campaign.

With the travel industry on pause there are flow on effects to other businesses.

They are getting far less paper from Sturgiss Newsagency, not booking the Jervis Bay Shuttle, not advertising or using other local services.

Their sponsorship of local community groups and organisations has also halted.

"We were doing the girls day out at the races, Nowra Show Girl, golf clubs, junior rugby league - and it is just all gone," Mrs Woodall said.

"We need their support - we supported them over the years so we need the support from them to come back to us."

"People are going to want to travel when things open up and we want to be there for them, hopefully our business will recover at that time but we've got to last until then," Mrs Clay said.