the times | Tuesday July 28 2020 2GM 7
News
A surge in bookings for “staycations”
next year has prompted tourism chiefs
to warn people to make their reserva-
tions now to avoid disappointment.
One operator said that it had only
three weekends available for a property
during next year’s holiday season.
It is increasing the cost of its stays by
as much as 50 per cent next year,
claiming that this is to recoup some of
the lost earnings during the lockdown.
Dates are also being squeezed by hol-
idays that had been booked for during
lockdown being rebooked for next year.
Fears over travelling abroad during a
pandemic has led to campsites, B&Bs
and cottages in the UK being inundat-
ed with requests.
There has also been a reduction in
bookings for ski resorts after the virus
spread throughout ski chalets during
the early stages of pandemic.
Hoseasons, one of the country’s
leading UK holiday agents, has had to
recruit extra telephone staff to cope
with the huge demand. It said that
bookings made for the following year
were up by a third on previous years.
Charles Millward, the owner of
Staycation Holidays, which manages
120 properties throughout the UK, said:
“People should be worried about find-
ing availability next year.
“A lot of dates are already taken
because they will have been moved
from this year — one of our properties
only has three weekends free next year
from March til September.
“The staycation has suddenly be-
come massive for us this summer and I
think it will be even bigger next year.Repatriation hampered by
penny pinching, say MPs
Catherine Philp
Diplomatic CorrespondentThousands of Britons were left strand-
ed abroad during the pandemic, some-
times for months, as a “penny pinch-
ing” Foreign Office operation failed to
get them home, a hard-hitting report by
MPs has said.
Official advice was “confusing,
inconsistent and lacking in compas-
sion, at other times misleading and out-
dated and in the worst cases entirely ab-
sent,” the foreign affairs committee said
of the operation developed after Brit-
ons travelling abroad were told to
return home at the height of the pan-
demic.
Only £40 million of the £75 million
allocated by the government for
repatriation efforts was ever spent
because “too much emphasis” was
placed on steering Britons towards
commercial providers rather than lay-
ing on charter flights. In many cases, no
commercial options were available,
leaving some Britons stranded.
The report noted that other coun-
tries, such as France and Germany,
resorted more quickly to charter flights.
The British government ran 186
charter flights to support 1.3 millionBritish nationals travelling abroad, the
report noted, while the German gov-
ernment laid on more than 260 to
support just 260,000 citizens.
“There are lingering questions
around why the FCO did not employ all
of the resources it had at its fingertips,”
Tom Tugendhat, the chairman of the
committee said. “When other nations
were chartering planes home, the FCO
continued to rely on commercial air-
lines, in a decision that can only be ex-
plained as cost-cutting.”
The report was also damning over
the government’s advice to Britons “to
crowdfund for return flights” if they
could not afford a ticket. Where charter
flights were laid on, the FCO charged
the costs to the individual returning.
The committee said the FCO had
failed to publicise that emergency loans
were available and called on the depart-
ment to offer repayment extensions.
Of those who responded to the com-
mittee’s survey, 40 per cent were unable
to make contact with the embassy in
their country. The committee advised
that the unused £35 million be allocat-
ed for use in the case of possible second
coronavirus wave or to help Britons res-
ident abroad who may yet be forced by
the pandemic to return.News
of holidays as infections surge
Staycations come at a
price (if you can find
anywhere to book)
Ben Ellery
People don’t want to run the risk of fall-
ing ill abroad or having to quarantine.
“In general our properties will in-
crease in price next year by 20 per cent
to recoup the cost owners lost during
the lockdown. One property we’re
booking for next year has gone up by
50 per cent. I think that will happen
more and more as owners have lost
thousands of pounds and need it back.
Simon Altham, chief commercial
officer at Awaze UK, the parent
company behind self-catering holiday
brands Hoseasons and cottages.com,
said: “We’ve seen a massive spike in
demand for domestic breaks since
government-imposed restrictions were
lifted at the start of the month.
“Cottage break bookings are up 223
per cent over the last four weeks
compared to the same period last year.
Demand for 2021 breaks is also
increasing, with bookings up more than
a third. Call volumes are tipping a
million for July – more than ten times
the number we’d normally expect at
this time of year.”
Hannah Budge, a PhD student at
Newcastle University, scrapped a
planned family holiday abroad and
explored the Shetland Islands in Scot-
land instead.
Ms Budge, 24, said: “It was a fantastic
week. We are based in Shetland and de-
cided we would like to explore parts of
it we have never seen. It rained a couple
of days but we had hot drinks in the car
and a fresh pair of socks so it was great.
“It’s made me appreciate what we
have here. Even though lockdown has
been awful in many ways it's really
made me grateful for what we have on
our doorstep.”Source: European Centre for Disease
Prevention and Control (ECDC)Turkey
N/A
919
weekend. In terms of deaths,
however, Spain has recorded only
26 in the past fortnight.
Catalonia has reimposed
restrictions, closing nightclubs and
urging people in Barcelona to
remain at home apart from
essential activity.
However, the regional president
Quim Torra insisted yesterday that
“major tourist destinations such as
the Costa Brava and the Costa
Dorada remain unaffected and
people can travel there safely”.
Restrictions have also been
tightened in Portugal, where
people in 19 areas of greater
Lisbon are allowed out only to buy
essentials such as food or
medicine, or to travel to and from
work.
Coronavirus cases on the city’s
outskirts continued to rise in the
first ten days of the partial
lockdown but have since started to
fall according to health authority.
Reporting team: Adam Sage,
Bruno Waterfield, Philip Willan,
David Crossland and
Isambard Wilkinsonthe case has triggered fears of a
repeat of the outbreak in the
Austrian ski resort in Ischgl in
March that infected tourists from
across Europe including the UK.
Italy, where a strict lockdown
brought the epidemic under control
in the spring, is reporting some new
clusters, sometimes attributed to
workers returning from Asia or
eastern Europe.
Some illegal migrants arriving on
small boats from north Africa have
also tested positive, causing alarm in
Sicily and southern Italy, where
most of the arrivals are
concentrated.
The Lazio region has said it will
test people arriving by bus in Rome
from the Balkans and Romania,
which has seen a recent spike in
Covid cases. Many Romanians work
as carers for the elderly, an extra
reason for stepping up controls.
Spanish health ministry officials
estimate that there are roughly 360
outbreaks — as three or more
linked cases are classified — across
the country. A total of 6,000 new
cases were registered over theuntil the end of August.
Jens Spahn, the German health
minister, announced that people
returning from trips to countries
designated as high risk such as
Turkey would have to undergo
mandatory tests from next week.
A family of four who returned to
their home in Cottbus in the
northeast from a holiday in
Mallorca tested positive in a routine
test conducted by an employer. The
Cottbus health authority is tracing
people they came into contact with
in the plane, airports and Spain.
With 781 new cases in Germany
on Saturday after 815 on Friday, the
first time it has been above 600 in
weeks, the Robert Koch Institute for
Disease Control described the trend
as “very worrying”.
In Austria the Alpine resort of
Lake Wolfgang has emerged as a
corona hotspot after 53 cases were
confirmed over the weekend, mainly
among teenage trainee hotel
workers from around Austria doing
summer work experience in local
hotels and restaurants. The area is
popular with German tourists andIt was a
kneejerk
reaction
Case studies
B
ritons on
holiday in
Mallorca have
been left
blindsided by
the decision to
introduce a two-week
quarantine when they
return to the UK
(Terenia Taras writes).
Jane and Gary
Graham from
Prestbury in Cheshire
said: “It’s ridiculous. It’s
crazy. There doesn’t
seem to be any
common sense within
our government.
“The government
should have given
people more time to
make a decision about
going back early; It’s a
complete kneejerk
reaction.”
The couple, who run
their own business
supplying carrier bags,
had planned a holiday
to Barbados in March
and a trip to Portugal
in June which were
both cancelled.
“After lockdown we
thought we’d come to
Mallorca for a week
and now we’re going to
have to self-isolate for
two weeks when we go
back, which is going to
be a nightmare.”
Lisa and Jimmy
O’Neil who are in
Santa Ponsa for two
weeks with their
daughter Kacey, 16,
said: “I’m gutted. I feel
like I’ve been conned. I
said when there was a
quarantine I wouldn’t
go anywhere,”explained Mr O’Neil,
who works for a
heating company in
Preston. “I don’t think
they’ll be able to police
it and I don’t
understand why they
can’t just test us when
we go back home?
“I’ve been off work
for nine weeks
shielding and only been
back to work for four
weeks and now I need
to take two more off.”
Ms O’Neil, who has
been working in social
care throughout
lockdown was looking
forward to their two-
week break. She said:
“It’s like taking a four-
week holiday.”
Holly Murphy, 21,
from Livingston in
Scotland, had just
started her holiday
with her 14-year-old
sister Daisy. “We camehere for five days. I’m
not happy about having
to quarantine. I was a
bit confused when I
heard because I didn’t
know if it included the
islands.
“We’re annoyed that
the quarantine had
just been lifted in
Scotland before we
came out here and now
it’s gone back into
quarantine.
“It’s a lose-lose
situation. You either
lose your holiday or
have to quarantine.”
Emma and John
Mack from Telford,
said the government
should have made the
new quarantine rule for
certain areas of Spain.
“I can understand
the rule for people
coming from mainland
Spain as they’ve had an
increase in cases in
certain areas but
Mallorca hasn’t,” said
Ms Telford, 46.
“We have to wear
masks here and it feels
safe because it’s quiet.”Holly Murphy said it
was a lose-lose choice
of giving up a holiday
or putting up with two
weeks in isolation