Turkey is the latest destination to be removed from the UK’s travel corridor list.
Transport secretary Grant Shapps announced that travellers returning to the UK from Turkey, Poland, Bonaire, St Eustatius and Saba will be subject to 14-day quarantine.
The restrictions will come into force at 4am on Saturday, October 3.
TRAVEL CORRIDOR UPDATE: The latest data indicates we need to remove Turkey, Poland, and Bonaire, St Eustatius and Saba from the #TravelCorridor list this week.
This means if you arrive from these destinations from 4am Saturday 3 October, you will need to self-isolate.
— Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) October 1, 2020
The transport secretary, who has taken to making the updates via social media each week, reiterated that fines of up to £10,000 can be imposed on those who do not adhere to the 14-day self-isolation as of tomorrow.
Shapps also reminded travellers returning to the UK to fill out a Passenger Locator Form.
The Foreign Office later updated its travel advice to remove exemptions for the same destinations from its blanket advice against all but essential travel.
An Abta spokesperson said: “The removal of Turkey and Poland from the travel corridors list is a massive blow for the travel industry. This coupled with popular winter sun destinations, like the Canary Islands, still on the quarantine list only piles the pressure on a struggling sector.
“Many travel businesses are in precarious position and will find it difficult to survive unless the government acts now with tailored support to assist the travel industry.”
Abta added that the chancellor’s Job Support Scheme “simply doesn’t go far enough for most travel businesses”, and urged the government to review it “as a matter of urgency to save jobs that would otherwise be viable, but for current measures to control the pandemic”.
They called for the implementation of regionalised quarantine, and a testing regime, measures they said were “vital to enable businesses to salvage something from a terrible year for travel”.
The spokesperson added: “Without tailored support people face losing the businesses and livelihoods they worked so hard to build.”
Joanne Dooey, president of the Scottish Passenger Agents’ Association, said the removal of Turkey from the government’s ‘safe lists’ “diminishes, to a point of almost zero, the destinations which travels agents are able to sell at this time”.
She added: “Simultaneously, it increases travel agent’s workloads as they have to deal with yet another round of cancellations and the associated loss of all related income.
“Action to support travel is critical. There are 26,000 jobs supported by the outbound travel sector in Scotland. It’s not just the connectivity to the rest of the globe which we will lose without tailored help, thousands of travel professionals will lose their jobs.”