Half-Term Holiday Bookings Jump 200% after England Travel Rules Change

Since the British government announced a loosening of travel limits in England, half-term holiday reservations have increased by 200 percent compared to August, according to Thomas Cook, a travel company.

Grant Shapps, Transport Secretary announced plans on Friday to simplify the Covid-19 rules around international travel beginning next month, scrapping the traffic light system in favour of a more limited "red" list of countries from which arrivals will still be required to quarantine in a government-supervised hotel.

Labour has expressed alarm over the spread of variations as testing criteria for vaccinated travellers from England are being relaxed. Passengers who have received both vaccinations will no longer be required to do a pre-departure test when returning to England from a non-red list country as of 4 October, and a lateral flow test will be acceptable in place of a day two PCR test as of the end of October. Lateral flow tests are much less expensive, but they are also less accurate.

Following the regulatory modifications that resulted in the 200% increase, Thomas Cook's chief executive, Alan French, predicted that bookings would grow even more. “Based on our bookings already today, I would expect this weekend to be the biggest of the year so far as people take advantage of the great deals on offer, the new easier rules on testing and the simplified system for international travel,” he said.

Skyscanner saw a 133 % increase in internet traffic within half an hour of the transport secretary's announcement.

DFDS Ferries' Director of Capacity and Commercial Performance Chris Parker praised the adjustments as well. “We’ve seen an immediate spike in visits to the website and uptick in bookings for October onwards,” he said, adding that bookings had “really collapsed” this year, with the company expecting to get only 20% of the bookings it received in 2019.

Karen Dee, Chief Executive of the Airport Operators Association pushed policymakers to ease the limits, even more, claiming that the UK's aviation industry had not recovered as quickly as that of several European countries. She claims that, on average, UK airports will receive just approximately 20% more passengers in 2021 than in a regular year, whereas European countries will see at least 50% more. “That’s all down to the complexities we’ve built into the testing system,” Dee said.

Egypt, Sri Lanka, Oman, Bangladesh, Turkey, Pakistan, the Malpes, and Kenya have been removed from Scotland and Wales' red lists, which will be reduced in line with England's. Scotland, on the other hand, has stated that it will not follow the EU in lowering testing rules, citing fears that doing so would “weaken our ability to protect the public health of Scotland’s communities”.

While the Welsh government said it would review the amendments, Eluned Morgan, the Welsh health and social services minister, said they might “weaken the line of defence on importing infection and increase opportunities for new infections and new variants to enter the UK and Wales”.

Labour is also concerned about the lowering of testing criteria. Jim McMahon, the shadow transport secretary, urged ministers to “set out in detail exactly how they would continue” to monitor variants “to ensure we do not see a repeat of the mistakes that allowed the Delta variant to spread so quickly across the country.”