The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
The honeymoon is back on!
“Delay is a bitter tonic, but it increases appetite,” said 19th-century master of aphorisms Austin O’Malley. Interestingly, his wife poisoned him with arsenic shortly after they married; but O’Malley’s words remain poignant for the half-million betrothed who had to postpone nuptials in 2020 – almost doubling the number of weddings rescheduled for the year ahead, and kick-starting a honeymoon boom.
“It’s phenomenal,” says James Bell, managing director of Turquoise Holidays, one of many tour operators reporting record-level honeymoon enquiries since restrictions lifted in July. “In the past three months, we’ve had more than a thousand enquiries – half of them from honeymooners – outstripping pre-pandemic levels by nearly 20 per cent. We’re rushed off our feet!”
Bell puts the surge down to pent-up demand and the invincibility of the 25-40 crowd of marrying age. “They don’t have the fears older generations might have. They’ve had to curtail probably the most important holiday of their lives and now they are ready to go.”
While destinations remain limited,
with romance favourites such as the Seychelles still off-limits, those tired of waiting are simply heading elsewhere – to Mauritius or the Caribbean, for example. Meanwhile, the Greek Islands have become this year’s number-one hotspot.
Hannah and Michael Beard, from Welwyn Garden City, were due to honeymoon in the red-listed Seychelles: “Instead we opted for a green-list destination and are flying to Barbados this week to stay at Cobblers Cove.”
Others are getting inventive. “We’re thrilled to see couples thinking outside the beach box and embarking on epic adventures to Iceland, Morocco and Jordan, seeking bucket-list experiences for honeymoons, with a higher spend,” reveals Carolyn Addison, head of product at Black Tomato, specialist in out-of-theordinary travel.
“After having to wait so long, they want their first trip to truly count. It’s about making up for lost time.”
Those happy to wait a little longer are holding out for their dream destinations in 2022. Simon Lynch, global sales and product director at Scott Dunn, says: “Since July we have experienced a rise in long-haul honeymoon bookings for 2022. The most popular honeymoon destinations are Mauritius, the Maldives, Kenya and South Africa.”
Buoyed by the boom, Bell hopes this is a sign of things to come. “It’s given us great encouragement,” he says, “and a sense of relief that travel might get back to normal more quickly.”