Survey reveals people making travel plans for after lockdown
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WHILE Scotland remains in lockdown, a survey has revealed that people are making holiday and travel plans for 2021.
A survey of members of the Scottish Passenger Agents’ Association (SPAA) shows that 60 per cent of agents had made new bookings for new holidays for clients in April.
The majority of the new holiday bookings were for beach holidays with 55 per cent of the members surveyed indicating they had made beach holiday new bookings and 41 per cent of respondents saying they had made new flight only bookings.
The majority of the new bookings were made to European destinations (83 per cent of those surveyed reported such bookings and 40 per cent had made new bookings to the Caribbean)
The most popular time for travel for new bookings is summer 2021, with 59 per cent of agents making a new booking for this time.
Joanne Dooey, president of the SPAA said: “The customers who our member agents are dealing with have remained optimistic about travel. We’re finding that, after a period of enforced lockdown, travellers want something to look forward to and are looking to their ‘bucket list’ of destinations for the holiday of a lifetime as a ‘reward’.
“We are also seeing customers paying balances for their holidays in July and August 2020. People very much still wish to travel, if they can, this year.
“It’s likely that this travel will look very different from travel pre pandemic and it’s uncertain what ‘safe’ travel will look like.
“Whatever measure are put in place in airports, onboard flights and cruise liners and hotels, travel will take longer,” she added. “Whichever measures are adopted, time to travel through airports will be considerably increased which will impact on travellers.
“Heathrow airport for example, has announced that it is to start trialling the use of temperature checking thermal cameras within weeks in one terminal. It will also trial the sanitisation of security trays by ultraviolet light and contact free security equipment to reduce the level of person to person contact.
“Although airlines and airports are calling for common standards to be adopted, there currently is no requirement for all operators to have the same measures in place. We this that standardisation will be important to bring back levels of confidence for passengers.
“The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has announced that it supports the onboard wearing of face masks for travellers and airline staff but is of the opinion that social distancing measures which leave the middle seat empty are not required.
“There are some measures which are likely to be considered and these include temperature screening of all travellers, boarding measures which reduce person to person contact, limited movement of passengers and crew inflight which may include restricted catering offering and new cabin cleaning measures. IATA is also talking about the possibility of ‘immunity passports’ in future as a temporary biosecurity measure once testing at scale is available.
“Airlines have collectively outlined a three-level process to MPs. For example, any airlines flying between two countries would have to company with the highest level with staff wearing PPE and all passengers wearing masks. Internal flights might have a different level process.
“Whichever measures are put in place they will need to be designed to give passengers confidence to fly and at the same time to keep the cost of flying affordable. Whatever this looks like in practice, Scottish travel agents will be there with their clients every step of the way to support and assist them to navigate any new procedures.
The SPAA, founded in 1921, is the world’s oldest organisation representing travel agents. It currently has 120 members and 92 associate members across the travel and transport industry.
