Holiday bookings cancelled as ministers send out mixed messages over prospect of Great British Summer

Ministers’ mixed messages over holidays has prompted a rash of cancellations as hopes of a Great British Summer fade.

Tour operators reported a slump in holiday bookings or surges in cancellations, as Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, rowed back on some of his previous optimism when disclosing he had booked a break in Cornwall.

With tough new border restrictions including enforced hotel quarantine due to come into force on Monday, Jet2, Jet2 holidays and British Airways announced they were extending the suspensions of their flights.

Jet2 and Jet2 holidays cancelled their flights and packages until April 14, almost two weeks after Easter - a point after which Boris Johnson said last November “things will look different.” BA extended the cancellation of all its flight and holiday packages up to and including March 15.

The disclosures come a day after conflicting signals from ministers, with Transport Secretary Grant Shapps saying no-one should be currently booking a domestic or foreign holiday and Boris Johnson saying it was “too early” to say what would happen over the summer.

TUI said that ever since ministers declared holidays were illegal, summer bookings had dried up with people instead looking ahead to reserve winter breaks at the end of the year and summer holidays next year.

“We are not seeing people moving their holidays if they have booked already but no-one is making any bookings. The only thing that is certain is uncertainty until we see a roadmap out of it,” said a spokeswoman.

“Everyone with a booking between now and May are able to amend. If people have an Easter holiday and are starting to feel a bit nervous, they can move it to October or next year.”

Gill Charlton, Cornwall holiday expert, said: “While bookings for next July and August are strong, there have been plenty of cancellations for early summer in recent weeks, especially from Europeans concerned about continuing travel restrictions.”

The trend is confirmed by Travelsupermarket which said 41 per cent of holiday bookings were for late summer and autumn from August to October. Just 18 per cent of bookings were for March to July.

Asked if he would recommend people should or should not book holidays, Mr Hancock said it was too early for certainty but that the Government was doing everything it could to allow Britons to a break away from home.

Amid confusion over the government’s messaging about whether or not people should be booking summer holidays for this year, Hancock urged people to be “patient” about the prospect of getting away because of Covid uncertainty. But the health secretary said on Tuesday he had booked a summer break in Cornwall.

“I know that people are yearning for certainty over whether they can have a summer holiday, but pandemics are difficult times and there is a lot of uncertainty, so I am afraid that people will have to be patient before we can get that certainty,” he told BBC Breakfast.

“We are doing everything that we possibly can to make sure that people can have a holiday this summer but the vaccine rollout is absolutely essential to that. “We will set out more in more detail when we can, but at the moment unfortunately there is that uncertainty still.”

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