People desperate to get away for autumn half-term and winter sun after so many months of Covid-19 restrictions were racing to choose a destination as the travel rules were being relaxed.
British Airways Holidays saw an increase of nearly 400 per cent in website searches for popular destinations including Cancun in Mexico and Cape Town and Johannesburg in South Africa. They were being removed from the red list, which is being cut from more than 50 countries.
A spokesman said: “Cancun was the most searched for destination and saw the largest increase of nearly 460 per cent when compared to the previous day.”
Dame Irene Hays, chairwoman of Hays Travel, said her staff had “red-hot laptops” as customers rushed to book holidays in the light of the rule change. From 4am on Monday, destinations such as the Seychelles and Thailand will also be among the 47 places being taken off the red list. It will include only Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, from where travellers arriving in the UK must still stay in hotel quarantine for 11 nights at a cost of £2,285 per adult.
“Only five minutes after the announcement there was a spike in bookings,” Dame Irene told Sky News.
Predicting a “fantastic half-term and strong Christmas” of bookings, she added: “Bali and the Maldives are popular. Holidays in Greece and Turkey are popular for half-term.” She said bookings were now 77 per cent of what they were before the pandemic.
James Pieslak, of Jet2holidays, said: “People are flocking back to Turkey, the Canary Islands, the Balearics and Greece. It’s pretty much across the board. It’s wonderful news for holidaymakers. It’s a genuine reopening of international travel.”
Thomas Cook chief executive Alan French told LBC: “I think if people are starting to plan for the winter sun break, which is really around Christmas time, again, then there are way more options than they had before, much better deals, so we are upbeat about that.
“But those are, in all honesty, slightly smaller parts of our business than the summer, which is obviously behind us.”
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps signalled that the requirement of Day Two PCR tests, costing around £70, will be ditched in time for half-term for the double-jabbed returning from non-red list countries.
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Holidaymakers and other travellers would have to take a lateral flow test instead, at a cost of around £25, so the change could save a family of four around £200, making foreign holidays more affordable for many. If an individual tested positive, they would then take a PCR test.
Mr Shapps told Sky News how the Government was seeking to drop the PCR requirement to have an impact on half-term, which starts on October 22. “What a difference it will make for people rather than having to do things like send off a test and wait for the result, people will be familiar with the lateral flow, you read it on the cassette there and then. It shows you the result in a few minutes.”
However, he advised people to wait a few more days before booking holidays, by when the date for ending of the PCR requirement should be clear. In other developments:
People arriving in England who take a lateral flow test will have to take a photograph of it to prove the result and send it to the health authorities.
Lateral flow tests are to be offered at Heathrow and other airports, meaning the requirement to do a test on Day Two or before, could be completed shortly after landing.
Mr Shapps said lateral flow tests had been “getting better and better” on their sensitivity, so will pick up more cases of coronavirus infection.
Travel industry experts today said the Government had “pulled up the shutters” on the sector to allow Britons to fly off for some winter sun and celebrate Christmas and new year with relatives overseas. Paul Charles, who runs the PC travel consultancy, said the industry was bouncing back to 80 per cent of its pre-pandemic levels.
