British travel companies said today that most Britons were booking their holidays for August and September as they took a gamble on the easing of the Covid restrictions.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Monday that international holidays would be possible this summer which led to a surge in holiday bookings to Mallorca with August being key.
A travel source told Bulletin online: "Most holiday bookers over the last 24 hours have gone for August because they believe that by then most of the restrictions will have been eased..."
Andrew Flintham, the managing director of Tui UK and Ireland, said: “The announcement from the prime minister was positive and shows that by working with the travel industry on a risk-based framework our customers will have the opportunity to travel abroad this summer. We will continue to work closely with the government so people can look forward to a well-deserved break away, after what has been a very difficult year for many.”
Thomas Cook said website traffic was up by 75% on Monday and bookings tripled from the day before. Turkey was the No 1 destination followed by Greece and Cyprus, but people also booked long-haul breaks to Dominican Republic and Mexico. The company said customers were also booking well into 2022. “It felt like the cork had popped on all that pent-up demand for holidays,” a spokesperson said.
The tour operator Jet2holidays and the Jet2 carrier said summer bookings had leapt 600% since Monday afternoon, compared with this time last week, to mainland Spain and its islands, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus and Turkey.