Nearly nine million holidaymakers face potentially having to cancel or rearrange trips to the US or mainland Europe that they booked before the introduction of new travel restrictions, according to new research shared exclusively with City A.M. this morning.
Nearly one in five adults, around 8.9m Brits, has booked trips to mainland Europe or the US for the next six months, London-based investment Ziglu pointed out.
But since then tighter rules on vaccinations in many popular destinations and new rules requiring people travelling to the UK to submit evidence of a negative Covid test before returning as well as new French restrictions on UK holidaymakers have come into place.
The travel industry fears millions of Brits will have to cancel or postpone their trips.
£1,840 per trip
Brits have spent an average £1,840 on their trips abroad. With more than one in three saying that they had splashed out on more expensive holidays than usual as a treat after not being able to travel freely recently.
Those spending more are on average paying £1,000 extra for their trips, but around 570,000 Brits say they have spent an additional £2,000 on top of the usual amount they would spend on a holiday.
For many it is a holiday of a lifetime – around two-fifths of those booked to go to the US have never been before, while nearly half (47 per cent) last visited two to three years ago. A third of those booked for European destinations have not been for more than two years.
The research by Ziglu found another 15 per cent of adults were planning to book holidays in the next six months before new restrictions were introduced.
“The Omicron variant has forced Governments around the world to introduce new restrictions to help slow the spread and this means disruption for millions of people who have booked holidays,” said London-based Mark Hipperson, Founder and CEO of Ziglu said.
“The decision whether or not to travel will be difficult given the need for COVID tests and the possibility of having to quarantine with all the disruption that leads to. The inevitable result will be that many cancel or postpone their trips,” he added.
“Travel companies and some airlines are trying their best to be flexible regarding refunds, but many holidaymakers will end up out of pocket as a result of the changes.”
