Noel Josephides, director on industry issues for AITO and Sunvil chairman, says the quarantine decision has come too late for travel businesses and shows a complete lack of understanding by the UK Government.
"The announcement has come too late. The Government prevaricated and promised it last week, then Monday, and then Thursday, and then said it would start from Monday, and now it’s Friday. That one week makes such a difference and will have meant the loss of thousands of bookings.
From the beginning everything about the Government’s reaction to the industry has been disjointed and has shown an enormous lack of experience and understanding of our industry. This was also really epitomised by the way they handled refund credit notes.
Government departments don’t talk to each other and when they do have meetings with the travel industry they don’t listen. This is not the way to run a Government and it’s people’s livelihoods that are at stake.
Lack of confidence among consumers has meant new bookings have only been trickling in. We can only hope we get a bit more movement from now on, but the harm has been done.
A lot of customers due to travel in July and August have not yet paid their balances and only now that we can start asking them will we know if they want to cancel.
We can’t start operating at the flick of a switch, it takes time to market and time for people to get their confidence back. We still don’t know which flights will be flying, airlines don’t know what demand they will have. We don’t know if hotels are open because it depends on demand. Many hotels are telling us they won’t open because the UK bookings haven’t been there. It’s too late and it’s very damaging."
