Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Holidays could be on hold until next year due to virus
Holidaymakers are unlikely to be jetting off overseas in the coming months and should now be looking ahead to next year.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock says “big, lavish, international holidays” are unlikely this summer. Last week the government announced a 14-day quarantine period for passengers entering the UK. This is expected to be introduced at the end of this month and would affect returning Britons as well as foreign nationals. According to one Kent travel agent, there is no hope of travelling abroad at the present time.
Andrew Baker, who is the director of Travel Vogue Ltd, of Meopham near Gravesend, said: “It is a pretty bleak outlook. The travel industry is always the first to be hit and the last to recover.
“In the travel world, we are forever the optimists but I think we should now start being pessimistic.
“I think we should be writing off 2020 in the hope that a drug or a vaccine will be available.” He can’t see holidaymakers swarming back to resorts this summer, saying there would be concerns about catering facilities such as buffets using utensils that 200 other people have used already. However, he said there was the prospect of a break around October if the situation was to improve.
In the meantime, the travel agent says he is continuing to advise existing customers on how to claim refunds from operators for upcoming trips but said there was a huge backlog as people rush to get their money back. Personal travel agent Paul Wells has been working in the industry for more than 20 years and is based in Staple, near Dover.
He is advising people to talk to their travel agent to explore their options regarding cancelling or postponing trips. “Speak to your travel agent and they’ll do the legwork for you,” he said. “Andifitcomestoitand you’re not able to travel the following year, the last resort, rather than lose the deposit, is to pay for the holiday, and when the government comes through you may be entitled for a refund or be able to go on the holiday.”
It comes as countries across the EU begin to ease restrictions and open their borders from June 16, paving the way for international trips should the Foreign Office change advice on essential travel.
But Paul remains cautious about the prospect of people wanting to enter into quarantine for the sake of a holiday.
He said: “The EU are looking to open up the borders on June 16, that’s their current plan, and they would allow EU country members and would allow an exception to allow UK members to enter the countries as well. “We’re a little bit behind in this country, in terms of when we would be allowed to travel. “The 14-day quarantine side of it really throws a spanner in the works – with that in place, as it currently stands, no matter whether you went for a short break or a longer holiday, you’d need to go into some kind of 14-day quarantine on your return. “It doesn’t look like exceptions in France will be tourism related, so if the tourism side isn’t exempt you could end up going on a two to three-day break to Disneyland Paris and then have to do a 14-day quarantine on your return. That would definitely put people off from travelling.” Tim Harden, owner of Harden Holidays in Dartford, remains cautiously optimistic at the prospect of travel and has even taken on new bookings for the winter. He said: “We’re seeing a great deal of pent-up demand for holidays, as people postpone their 2020 travel until 2021.
“In fact, we’ve been making plenty of bookings departing from this winter onwards. “Everything is very fluid and is changing rapidly day by day,” he added.
Once restrictions on foreign movement are eased in the coming months he believes the appetite for travel to foreign lands will boil down to each person’s “individual capacity for risk”.