Holiday companies travel surge, with Turkey holiday search up 372.55%
Following the recent travel update from the Government, holiday companies are reporting a huge surge in bookings.
TravelSupermarket holiday price comparison site traffic since the announcement that Turkey, Egypt and the Maldives were off the red list vs previous day:
All users up 26.14%
- Turkey up 372.55%
- Spain up 31.31%
- Egypt up 1,170.00%
- Maldives up 295.08%
Emma Coulthurst from holiday price comparison site, TravelSupermarket comments:
"Grant Shapps “simpler and cheaper” system is not going to be fully realised though until the date for the removal of costly PCR tests is confirmed.
We are expecting more interest in holidaying following the dropping of the pre departure requirement from 4th October which removes peoples concern about potentially having to quarantine abroad if they’d received a positive result.
Despite being on the red list, so far this month Turkey has still been the 4th most popular country to compare package holiday prices for via TravelSupermarket for a holiday from the UK in September and October (dropping from 3rd place in 2019 at this time). This just shows the pent-up demand to travel to this low cost, warm late summer destination. Now it is off the red list from next Weds, we are going to see a rise in people searching for holidays and clicking through and booking holidays with operators to get some sun on their faces as the weather and the nights close in in the UK. It is such a low cost popular destination. You can eat out there for £10 and have change, and the weather is still great in October. It will be an incredibly popular option. Life is starting to open up again and people, who holidayed in the UK this summer in the absence of other advance choice, will be keen to dip their toes in the overseas holiday waters again.
The cost and admin surrounding PCR tests has been a major barrier to travelling. Once the date for the PCR test costs are removed from the travelling equation, this is going to be a major game changer and will see people prepared to give travel a go. If this is dropped before October half term as hoped, it will be a popular time to try and escape with families. People will also venture on city breaks again, which have been off most people’s agendas due to the tests costing in the majority of cases more than the holiday – in normal times, this is the most popular time of year to go on one."
