The great staycation stampede (as sunshine breaks stay on ice)
PM’s former right-hand man says Department of Health was ‘smoking ruin’ over Covid failures
SCOTLAND’S tourism sector is bracing itself for a staycation stampede after plans to ease lockdown prompted huge demand for domestic bookings.
Some travel agents say they have been forced to expand to cope with a surge in reservations and queries after Nicola Sturgeon’s promise of a more normal summer.
Trade bodies have reported a boom in interest in rural retreats and city breaks across the country.
The First Minister announced on Tuesday she plans to drop the ban on travelling to other parts of the UK on April 26, as part of wider lockdown easing measures ahead of the summer.
National parks bosses said yesterday they plan to increase staff numbers and expand parking capacity ahead of a predicted rush following the announcement.
But there are concerns demand will push up prices, with some hotels already accused of adding a premium to the cost of a room.
The issue was exacerbated after Miss Sturgeon cast doubt on foreign holidays being allowed this summer.
Glasgow-based Barrhead Travel said it has expanded its domestic portfolio by 50 per cent and launched a ‘holiday at home’ range. Jacqueline Dobson, president of the travel agent, said she expected a further flood of inquiries for staycation bookings for May onwards this week.
She added: ‘We anticipated the demand for holidays at home would be strong into 2021 and beyond. Demand for domestic bookings for this year has been strong and will likely keep growing, particularly for last-minute breaks.’
The firm said there had been increased demand for outdoor breaks, with lodges, caravans and cottages proving most popular.
Driving holidays along the North Coast 500 route and city breaks to Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen were also high on the list of destinations attracting interest.
VisitScotland said its studies had shown a quarter of people in Britain plan a UK holiday this year, with 59 per cent of those being people living outside Scotland who intend to take a trip north of the Border this spring.
This figure rose to 69 per cent for a summer holiday.
Meanwhile, 41 per cent of Scottish residents said they were confident a domestic break was on the cards in the next few months, and 61 per cent said they hoped to take a summer break.
A spokesman for VisitScotland attributed the change in attitude to the vaccine rollout. Airbnb and Booking.com said they are seeing a growing number of online searches for properties in Scotland.
Joanne Dooey, president of the Scottish Passenger Agents’ Association, which represents travel agents, said: ‘What we have seen already is clients paying the final balances for holidays which they may otherwise have cancelled.
‘There is huge pent-up demand. Many people have their holiday pot from last year and seem happy to spend more this year than they would have previously considered, so people seem willing to pay these inflated prices, which shows just how much value people place on having a holiday.’
Gordon Watson, chief executive of Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park Authority, said it was preparing for an influx of tourists. It plans to add 40 rangers, wardens and enforcement officers, extend toilet opening hours, add toilets at popular locations, increase litter collections and have more staff at weekends.
Extra overnight parking for motorhomes will also be added.
Mr Watson said the pandemic last year meant more Scots had discovered the natural environment closer to home.
He added: ‘Since the end of the 2020 visitor season, we have worked closely with our partners on a joined-up response to the anticipated demand for staycations and day trips in the months ahead.’
However, Marc Crothall, chief executive of the Scottish Tourism Alliance, offered a note of caution. He said the road map brought ‘hope and confidence’, but added: ‘There is still a big question over whether the lifting of travel restrictions will happen when the First Minister says it will happen.
‘We are 99 per cent of the way there but what we need is for this to be rubber-stamped.’
Miss Sturgeon warned yesterday the ban on non-essential travel abroad may be in place for longer than other curbs, with the hope most lockdown restrictions can be
‘There is huge pent-up demand’
eased by late June. She said she plans more talks with the aviation industry next week about the return of some travel abroad.
But she added: ‘Like the UK Government, I don’t think that will be possible before May 17 but my view is that it is also likely not to be possible for a period after that.
‘We’ve got to be cautious about the global picture.’
Also yesterday came the warning that it is still too early to say when most office staff will be able to stop working from home.
Dr Gregor Smith, the chief medical officer, warned that it was ‘perfectly feasible’ for some measures – including working from home – to be in force ‘for some time yet’.
DOMINIC Cummings has hit out at the Department of Health, saying it was a ‘smoking ruin’ overseeing a ‘disaster’ in the early days of the pandemic.
The controversial former top Downing Street aide used his first public appearance since quitting to launch an explosive attack on Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s department over procurement and failures to source protective equipment.
The vaccine rollout was taken away from the Department of Health because of its performance, Mr Cummings told MPs.
He also described a living room deal with Boris Johnson in which he listed four demands, including an overhaul of bureaucracy in the ‘disaster zone’ of Whitehall, before joining Downing Street as an adviser.
Mr Cummings called for an ‘urgent’ inquiry into what went wrong as the country emerges from lockdown. And he denied receiving a pay rise, after documents showed an increase of up to £50,000 last year, claiming he had in fact asked for a pay cut after moving to Number 10.
Among his revelations to the Commons science and technology committee, Mr Cummings said the vaccine programme had been taken out of the Department of Health’s hands. This was authorised directly by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, partly on the advice of chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance.
Describing the decision, Mr Cummings said: ‘In spring 2020 you had a situation where the Department of Health was just a smoking ruin in terms of procurement and PPE and all of that.
‘You had serious problems with the funding bureaucracy for therapeutics on Covid – so that was the kind of context for it.’
At the start of the pandemic, NHS staff reported shortages of masks, visors and gowns, forcing the Government to pay high prices for the personal protective equipment, some of which was found to be useless. Mr Cummings claimed the procurement system, created using a framework set by the EU, was an ‘expensive disaster’ and ‘completely fell over’ when the crisis hit.
Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth, responding to the evidence given by Mr Cummings, said: ‘This is a scathing intervention from Boris Johnson’s former right-hand man and most trusted aide.
‘To describe the Department of Health and Social Care as a “smoking ruin” is a clear admission of fundamental mistakes that have contributed to us tragically experiencing one of the highest death rates in the world.’
Justifying Brexit, after use of the Oxford vaccine was suspended in various European countries, the former Downing Street aide said: ‘Just this week we’ve seen what happens when you have an anti-science, anti-entrepreneurial, antitechnology culture in Brussels, married with its appalling bureaucracy and its insane decisions and warnings on the AstraZeneca vaccine.
‘I think we are extremely well out of that system.’
Mr Cummings left his job in November after clashing with Mr Johnson’s fiancee, Carrie Symonds.
Defending the Health Department, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said yesterday: ‘We have procured over nine million items of PPE, we have established the NHS Test and Trace system which has contacted millions of people and asked them to isolate.
‘DH (Department of Health) and the NHS were central to the rollout of the vaccination programme.’
At yesterday’s coronavirus briefing, asked about Mr Cummings’ comments, Mr Hancock said the vaccine was a ‘huge team effort’. But Mr Cummings told MPs: ‘I hope that, as the country emerges from the current lockdown, there should be an urgent, very, very hard look by this building (Parliament) into what went wrong and why in 2020.’
‘We are well out of that system’