The government has created a “second wave of economic crisis” for the travel industry by introducing a quarantine, critics of the new measures say.
A 14-day self-isolation requirement for anyone arrival in the UK, which has been widely condemned by travel industry leaders, came into force on Monday.
Speaking on a Travel Weekly Webcast, Paul Charles, chief executive of The PC Agency and co-ordinator of the Quash Quarantine campaign, said: “There are many businesses across the country – hotels, agents, tour operators – who are very passionate about their businesses and they’ve built them up over many years. They have zero income coming in and they have lots of money going out because they’re having to refund.
“And what the government has created, by introducing quarantine, is a second wave. Ironically, not a Coronavirus second wave, but a financial second wave on the sector, because it’s now going to have to refund again, to those people who are worried about not being able to go away in July and August, simply because the government has not created an endpoint or timeline to this travel crisis they’ve created,” he said.
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“The government’s worried about a second wave from a healthcare point of view, and so they should be, [but] there’s a point you have to get the economy moving. There may be a third wave and a fourth wave without a vaccine, but the government has created a second wave of economic crisis for so many businesses – and I don’t think they even realise.”
Advantage Travel Partnership chief executive Julia Lo Bue-Said added: “I represent 350 companies in leisure and business travel, and we’re having really difficult conversations with many of our members because of the lack of income, the refunds going out, money going out and the furlough scheme, which is great, but not ideal for our industry in terms of how it will be tapered off.”
“And this is going to absolutely create a huge void in our sector, and not just in our sector but in the whole ecosystem. So unless we get something moving pretty quickly, we are going to see mass-scale redundancies and mass-scale business failures. Our members are holding on for a lifeline, and these are exceptionally great businesses that are hanging on by a thread. It’s critical we do not see any further delay and measures [to relax quarantine rules on arrivals] are implemented straightaway.”
Joanne Dooey, owner of travel agency Love2Travel and president of the Scottish Passenger Agents Association (SPAA) said she feared for member businesses.
“In Scotland, we’ve missed a lot already because we take our holidays a bit earlier,” she said. “We’ve missed that massive part of June. So members are really worried and we’ve already seen quite a few companies going down because of it.
“There is an appetite out there and customers are wanting to travel but they want to have that information coming to see that it is OK to travel.”
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