Travel agent warns there could be too few holidays

A CITY travel agent has said he may sell out of holidays this season, amid a spike in sales fuelled by vaccine hopes.

John Stewart, managing director of Hays Travel in Dundee, believes his business may end up with “more customers than holidays next year”.

The concern comes after the company experienced a surge in sales following news of the new Pfizer/BioNtech coronavirus vaccine.

However, customer confidence comes amid reports that airlines – which took an enormous financial hit this year – will struggle to revive all their routes from Scottish airports.

As a result, John is concerned that demand for trips abroad could exceed what the airline companies are able to supply.

He said: “I’ve been in the travel industry for a long time – I worked with Thomson for 30 years – and I know that when there’s something that gives the airlines a beating like this, they reduce to a smaller capacity.

“All of the airlines have reduced their capacity in Scotland, and my worry from a retail point of view is that I’m going to have more customers than holidays to sell.

“The best thing that people can do is book early, and if enough interest is shown then they may bring back more of these flights from Edinburgh and Glasgow.”

The Covid-19 pandemic has meant chaos for both the industry and travellers this year.

As the extent of Covid-19 became more obvious in March, many Dundee travellers either found themselves struggling to get home on the last handful of available flights, or stranded abroad.

As the initial lockdown eased, people then snapped up the chance to soak up some summer sunshine on foreign shores.

But again plans were often thrown into disarray by shortnotice changes to air corridors, particularly in Europe, leaving some travellers having to scrap plans at the last minute, or face a two-week quarantine when they got home.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon recently advised Scots to think twice before booking a 2021 summer holiday for now, despite the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine.

That advice was issued after a report by the COG-UK Consortium found new strains of the virus had entered Scotland due to travellers returning from their holidays this summer.

Ms Sturgeon said: “I very much hope that the prospect of being able to travel by next summer will be there for all of us.

“But it would be, I think, a bit foolish of me to stand here right now and advise people what to be doing next summer, when we’re still trying to navigate our way through this pandemic.”

But Hays has already seen a huge uptick in sales since news of the vaccine first broke in November, with customers scrambling to get away in 2021 and even 2022.

The company says it is confident these trips will go ahead but has also brought in a “peace of mind” guarantee that allows travellers to cancel or amend their plans up to six weeks in advance at no extra cost.

John said: “We were very surprised in November when this vaccine news came out, it was like a switch had been turned.

“We opened in November of last year, and we were actually busier this November than the one before. So far our most popular trips are the USA in 2022 and Mediterranean holidays in 2021, as well as city breaks.

“There is confidence that trips in 2021 will be going ahead, just with fewer people travelling than usual.

“And then, with 2022, there is extreme confidence that we will get back to holiday normality with cruises and flights and all of that going much more smoothly.”