Don’t book a foreign summer holiday now, minister warns

MILLIONS of people in Britain were today advised by a government minister not to book a summer holiday abroad at this stage as “quarantine hotel” border controls are set to be introduced.

Asked whether his advice to people considering booking a summer holiday was not to do so right now, vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi responded on Sky News: “Absolutely.

“At the moment, we have reached base camp... with the vaccine deployment programme, six and a half people now with the first dose... a long way to go.

“There are still 37,000 people in hospital with Covid, it’s far too early for us to even speculate about the summer.”

However, Noel Josephides, director of travel association Aito and chairman of operators Sunvil, criticised Mr Zahawi’s comments as “very unhelpful”.

“Why deny people the pleasure of booking a holiday from June onwards? They know that there’s financial protection in place that means customers are fully protected and they will get their money back if they book with a licensed travel operator,” he said.

“It damages the industry because it denies them the deposits they usually receive for holidays in June and after and puts a lot of pressure on cash flow.”

Boris Johnson is expected today to approve plans to force some travellers arriving in England to quarantine in hotels to limit the spread of new coronavirus variants.

Various options are said to be on the table but Whitehall sources suggested MPs may opt for a more limited system after aviation leaders warned that introducing tougher border rules would be “catastrophic” for the industry.

Officials said a less sweeping option would apply only to British residents returning from countries with more contagious strains, such as Brazil, South Africa and Portugal, with tougher travel restrictions already imposed for non-UK citizens.

But the final decision is set to be made at a meeting of the Covid-O committee, expected late today.

Surinder Arora, whose Arora hotel group owns or runs 11 hotels near Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports, with a total of nearly 5,000 rooms, said the proposal was “long overdue” and “should have been done last year”.

But Tom Jenkins, chief executive of the European tourism body ETOA, warned the Government against restrictions on arrivals from many countries with low infection rates.

He said: “They feel that have to do something and the obvious victims are foreigners and people coming in from abroad. It’s just looking like a xenophobic witch-hunt.”