Advertisement feature by Peter Mills, Saddleworth Travel
There was an article with that headline on the BBC earlier this week and I’ll paraphrase the answer for you – not yet!
The announcement of the roadmap out of lockdown and all coronavirus restrictions seems to have given headline writers a frothy frisson of collective common-sense blockages. “Holiday bookings up 600%” “Brits set to flock abroad!” etc, etc.
I suppose if you were doing one booking a week and now you are doing six, you have had a 600% upturn in business – but it’s not that relevant if your normal business is 100 bookings a week.
I think the roadmap has at least raised the possibility of holidays with the public and it certainly has started the conversation, which is a good thing.
The problem is that at the moment, and until we are told otherwise, every trip abroad will be followed by quarantine on your return. That’s probably in addition to the quarantine you may have had to endure in your destination.
Some (desperate) countries are in talks with our government about welcoming tourists with open arms. My question is would the government be prepared to sacrifice our national bio security to allow a few selfish people to travel to places with much worse levels of infection and covid protocols?
The Home Secretary (why her?) was asked in Parliament about when holidays might be booked again and her reply was that it was “too soon” to book.
In other news UK airports reported that passenger numbers were down 76% in 2020. Remember that we had nearly three months of normal travel in that year, so really the numbers for the nine covid months must have been virtually zero.
Those airlines have to get back some of what they have lost so you will find that if you want to book a trip to Tenerife in October half term you will be paying the equivalent of every flight that didn’t happen in 2020!
This may all sound like I am a bit grumpy, but I am not – we have actually had a nearly normal February, albeit every booking was for 2022.
I just think we need to go slow and steady to get out of lockdown – and frothy headline writers should just calm down!
• Visit Saddleworth Travel at St Mary’s Gate, Uppermill or call 01457 873 236.
