England will allow fully vaccinated visitors from the European Union and United States to arrive without needing to quarantine from next week, in a huge and long-awaited boost for airlines and travel companies.
Britain’s travel industry has heavily criticised the government for being too slow to open up and fretted that the delays have allowed the EU to race ahead in attracting tourists.
Now, from Aug. 2, travellers with U.S. and EU-approved vaccines will not have to quarantine. Lifting the same requirement for fully vaccinated Britons returning from medium risk countries in July helped to kickstart a travel recovery.
The new rule applies to England but is widely expected to be followed by the rest of Britain shortly. The government said international cruise sailings could also restart from England.
Airlines such as British Airways and Britain’s biggest airport Heathrow, weighed down by cumulative pandemic losses of $4 billion, welcomed the move but said more was needed to be done if the industry was to recover from the collapse in demand.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said earlier on Wednesday on LBC radio that he wants U.S. citizens to come to England “freely” and is discussing a travel corridor with the United States.
Shares in British Airways were up 3% while easyJet rose 4% and Wizz Air jumped 5%, as investors hoped that the changes would boost demand for travel, prompting airlines to add more flights.
Top of the list is a reopening of the UK-U.S. travel corridor which is still affected by a ban on all non-U.S. citizens who have been in Britain. Within Europe, the change will lead to a two-way flow of traffic, but for the transatlantic carriers British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, planes will primarily be carrying U.S. citizens to England because the United States continues to bar nearly all non-U.S. citizens who have been in Britain.
Johnson hopes he can change that. He told LBC that he is talking to the U.S. about a travel corridor, which would involve travel in both directions.
Decision comes just a day after World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC)—global tourism body, which represents the global private Travel & Tourism sector—had said that the UK’s economic revival is being hampered by the lack of inbound travel while flights to amber list countries take off.
New data collected by travel and analytics firm and WTTC knowledge partner ForwardKeys, revealed the highest week-on-week percentage increases in tickets booked were to Germany, which were up by 113%; to Croatia up by 69%; Sweden by 68%; Portugal by 65% and Albania, up by 64%.
The data shows airline tickets booked for international trips out of the UK increased an average of 24% in the week to 13th July, compared to the previous week.
Weekly flight tickets for future travel from the UK to traditional destinations have exceeded pre-pandemic levels, with Greece the most popular destination, up 211% compared to 2019.
The Bahamas follows closely, with tickets up 161% on pre-pandemic levels. Croatia has also reached pre-pandemic weekly ticketing levels in the last week (107%) while tickets for travel to Spain, which reached 88% of 2019 levels, are fast increasing.
While this was good news for land-locked Brits, desperate to enjoy a much-need summer holiday break, the British economy which relies on international visitor spend will have been left in the doldrums by the lack of reciprocal inbound travel.
Based on 2019 levels and despite the rise in domestic holidays, the lack of inbound international visitors through July, due to concern over rising coronavirus cases and the UK government’s strict quarantine rules, could rob the UK economy of a staggering £639 million each day.
According to WTTC’s 2021 Economic Impact Report (EIR) international visitor spend in 2019, before the pandemic struck, added a staggering £35.6 billion to the UK economy, or 4.9% of total exports.
This slumped to £10.1 billion in 2020 as the impact of travel restrictions wreaked havoc around the world, contributing to just 1.7% of total exports. This represented an eye-watering collapse of 71.6%, or £25.5 billion.
You must be logged in to post a comment.