Online agency Holidaysplease has released sales figures for the first four months of lockdown, showing a recovery from a 78% drop in April to just 6% in July before quarantine rules for Spain were reversed.
The agency said rebookings were not included in the figures and said revenue from new bookings improved from 22% compared to prior year in April, to 38%, 61% and 94% in May, June and July respectively. Sales revenue in July surpassed £2 million.
It admitted August was likely to fall back after consumer confidence was hit by changes to quarantine rules, but said it was confident growth would return and has listed six new positions in addition to homeworking team opportunities on its recruitment website to meet anticipated demand.
Director Charles Duncombe said: “Covid-19 has had a pretty dramatic impact on all travel companies and I never thought I would ever be delighted at being 6% down in business in a month but it feels like about 600% up at the moment.
“The government’s Spanish quarantine restrictions have certainly hit consumer confidence for August which means it might be one step back after two steps forward. But I will settle for that compared to the one step forward and five steps back that were happening at the start of this crisis.”
Duncombe said most popular destinations for forward bookings were the Indian Ocean, Caribbean, Dubai and Mexico, with spring 2021 the most popular departure period.
He added that bookings for Europe and the US were slower than normal, with hotels and villas performing strongly and cruise bookings down on prior year.
