THE travel industry has one demand for government: Give us a break.
Holidaymakers, operators, agents and airlines have all taken a kicking since the pandemic erupted.
We’ve done plenty of research on what the British public want.
It’s hardly surprising to find out that, after going through hell for the past year and a half, we are all desperate to go on holiday.
But the constant to-ing and fro-ing and mixed messages from the Government is horribly eroding public confidence and causing huge frustration.
I can’t blame travellers for staying away.
Nobody wants the financial risk and huge disappointment of booking a holiday that will then be cancelled.
Every day seems to bring some new restriction that inevitably wrecks plans for thousands of us.
An annual holiday abroad is most people’s biggest expense of the year by far. The rules are too confusing at the moment. One minute somewhere is on the green list, the next it’s gone.
And every day seems to bring some new restriction that inevitably wrecks plans for thousands of us.
I used to think traffic lights had three colours. Not so. If you are based at No10, we seem to have red, green, amber and “amber plus”.
That one extra word has caused so much havoc for families who had planned — or even worse, had actually booked — a trip to France, our next-door neighbour and a favourite destination for British holidaymakers.
France was put on the amber-plus list, meaning you have to quarantine for ten days on return — not something a lot of us can do.
That might change. But still there is no word. It’s August tomorrow — the summer holidays are speeding along fast.
The reason for us being unable to go on holiday to France seems to be the emergence of the Beta variant in French foreign territory La Reunion — an island 6,000 miles away from mainland France.
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More puzzling is that cases in our neighbour’s mainland are actually far lower than in the UK.
The rest of Europe is allowed to enter the UK from August 2 — as long as they are double-jabbed. So we should be allowed to travel to countries where cases are lower than the UK and not face a punitive quarantine on return.
Meanwhile, Greece is considering tightening rules on popular islands and Italy has extended its quarantine rules for British travellers — keeping its five-day mandatory isolation on arrival.
On top of the insecurity and indecision, families are having to shell out for expensive PCR tests. A colleague is taking his family of four on holiday. Ensuring everyone is ready to travel has cost him £400.
For some reason, travel restrictions are tighter now than last summer, when vaccines weren’t available.
It just doesn’t add up when lateral flow tests are free from pharmacies and we have a world-leading vaccination programme. But for some reason, travel restrictions are tighter now than last summer, when vaccines weren’t available.
Travel operators know holidays are a big expense for British families. Our commitment to customers means that when travel plans are cut short, we refund the difference and shoulder the costs.
And we do this despite having had no income now for 17 months. We don’t get paid until our customers actually GO on holiday.
Holiday firms are resilient — they’ve had hard times before — but this chaos is bringing them to their knees.
Many took years to build up and another travel-free summer could crush them. The ever-changing rules at a time when we could be opening up travel is like kicking someone when they are down.
Another summer of travel chaos won’t just wreck holidays this year. It could have a serious knock-on effect for future breaks too.
Because the risk in all this struggle and strain for holiday companies is that if they start to fail, less competition means your yearly holiday will cost you much, much more.
We won’t have the huge holiday choice that we’ve all got used to enjoying, either. It’s clear the Government doesn’t understand the travel industry and mistakenly sees holidays as a luxury.
Messing about
But we are a huge industry that, in 2019, was worth £36billion to the Exchequer.
And other industries depend on us. Retail is suffering because people aren’t buying suncream, bikinis and new wardrobes for summer trips.
Inbound travel also depends on outbound travel for airline seats to bring visitors worth billions to the UK.
To add insult to injury, the Government has been updating the industry on key travel decisions through Twitter.
Stop the faffing about and give us all the respect — and the holidays — we deserve after the past year and a half.
This can’t go on. The Government must stop changing their minds and start making solid, sensible decisions. Give us a proper, forward-looking framework for how travel can work and what holidaymakers CAN do. Then stick to it.
No more messing about. No more holiday roulette. Scrap quarantine or self-isolation immediately.
Make travel affordable for families by having confidence in the vaccine programme, and let travellers take the more inexpensive lateral flow tests.
Our Government departments have to start talking to each other and to other countries so they can find a way to make travel viable again.
Stop the faffing about and give us all the respect — and the holidays — we deserve after the past year and a half.
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