Silver Travel Advisor’s Lisa McAuley on how the trade can help customers achieve a sense of flow
According to the latest YouGov poll, 77% of Britons say they do not feel that their lives have yet returned to normal following the lifting of Covid restrictions.
Well, I bring good news! We’ve just closed the latest round of research with our Silver Travellers and 55% of respondents told us they expect to take their next trip before the end of 2021. Clearly, we are still an optimistic bunch.
Unsurprisingly, many will be sticking with the UK this summer, but a good number are looking at travelling overseas. And there is better news still on travel and holiday intentions for 2022, with some 70% planning to take a trip and actively researching. Curious minds will be around longer than the pandemic.
I’ve had my own holiday intentions come to fruition, squeezing in a break to Palma and a few days’ camping in Norfolk, and now I’m busy planning a cruise before the summer is out.
But my long-awaited trip to see my brother and his family in the US still seems some way off. I last visited him more than two years ago, in December 2018, taking over our dad, who had been diagnosed with cancer, to see him – a trip which gave us all a much‑needed morale boost.
We’ve been planning another trip to Minnesota for over a year now. To coin a well-used phrase, I’ve been having to continually kick the can down the road, and having heartbreaking conversations with my dad every month or so, explaining why it’s still not possible for him to visit his son. Time is precious, and every month’s delay to the reopening of the US is a month we can’t afford.
Transatlantic upturn
It’s heart-warming, though, to see recent reports of families reunited as people from the US and EU are allowed to travel back to the UK if double-vaccinated. While it is still not a solution for us, it feels like a step closer to a McAuley family reunion.
The prime minister has recently been quoted as saying he “understands that people care very much about their holidays, people want to go abroad”, and he “understands how much people plan and prepare for the summer holidays”. Yet I’ve heard very little about the plight of families who have been separated by the pandemic.
All of us in travel understand it’s not just about “a summer holiday”, it’s much more complex and diverse than that. I fear that the UK government’s continued lack of understanding of our sector, with no dedicated minister, will be an ever-present battle for our industry.
Travel appetite
It’s also worth saying that none of my recent travel escapades have been in any way easy to arrange. So it comes as no surprise that being stranded overseas, fear of quarantine, complexity of testing and likelihood of cancellations are cited as concerns in our Silver Traveller research.
Yet, despite all these frustrations, the appetite and determination to travel is very much evident.
Travel is something that can completely engross you, and studies show that being immersed and ‘in the moment’ can combat mental health issues.
There’s a name for this: it’s called being in a ‘state of flow’. A state of flow is said to bring on a sense of losing track of time; thoughts and feelings about the past begin to fall away and one’s mind is focused on what is happening right now.
Thinking more about this, I realised I’ve achieved being in a state of flow recently. Firstly, as I was cycling along the Norfolk coastal path in the sunshine, and secondly while out at sea off the coast of Palma surrounded by turquoise waters.
I also know that I’ve never achieved a state of flow while on a Zoom call. So I ask myself, where can I travel to next, and soon?