Holiday surge expected after travel rules change

A surge in holiday bookings is expected after the government announced on Friday that international travel rules were being simplified in England.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the travel traffic light system was being replaced with a single red list.

And fully vaccinated people will no longer need a pre-departure test before returning from non-red list areas.

Travel firms said they had already seen an uptick in bookings and expected a busy weekend.

As part of the changes announced by Mr Shapps, eight countries – Turkey, Pakistan, the Maldives, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Oman, Bangladesh and Kenya – were removed from the red list.

It means people returning from these destinations will no longer have to stay in hotel quarantine.

Mr Shapps also announced that from October travellers returning to England will no longer have to take a PCR test two days after arrival. Instead, they can take the quicker and cheaper lateral flow tests.

Alan French, chief executive of travel firm Thomas Cook, said October half-term bookings were three times higher than in August and he expected this figure to increase as a result of the changed system.

“Based on our bookings already today, I would expect this weekend to be the biggest of the year,” he said.

Andrew Flintham, managing director of holiday company TUI UK, said he had already seen “an uptick in bookings for Turkey in October” and expected a boost in customer confidence with the new rules.

Online travel agency Skyscanner said it saw a 133% spike in traffic in the 30 minutes following Mr Shapps’s announcement, while there had been “huge increases” in searches for destinations such as Turkey and the Maldives in anticipation of Friday’s news.

But Labour has raised concerns over how the monitoring for coronavirus variants will continue amid the plans to scrap the PCR test requirements.

Shadow transport secretary Jim McMahon said: “PCR tests play a crucial role in identifying variants of concern and ministers must now set out in detail exactly how they will continue this surveillance – including whether they plan to increase sequencing of tests – to ensure we do not see a repeat of the failings that allowed the Delta variant to spread rapidly through the country.”

The Scottish government said it would also drop the traffic light system but would not follow England in removing the pre-departure test requirement for the fully vaccinated returning from non-red list countries

The country’s Transport Secretary, Michael Matheson, said there were “concerns” this would “weaken our ability to protect the public health of Scotland’s communities”.

Scotland will also not copy England in using lateral flow tests on day two at this stage.

The decision to diverge from England’s rules has been criticised by Edinburgh Airport, which said the move would “further curtail Scotland’s aviation and travel industries in their recovery”.

The Welsh government said it would consider the UK government’s proposed changes, but health and social services minister Eluned Morgan warned they could “weaken the line of defence on importing infection and increase opportunities for new infections and new variants to enter the UK and Wales”.

Both administrations said they would mirror the changes to the red list destinations.

Mr Shapps said the measures were intended to strike the “right balance” between simplifying the system while managing the public health risk “as number one priority”.

Airport Operators Association chief executive Karen Dee said the easing of restrictions should encourage more people to travel over the winter, but urged ministers to go further.

EasyJet chief executive Johan Lundgren said it was a “welcome step forward” which would make travel to Europe significantly easier although there was more that needed to be done.