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Travel agents in Guernsey have seen an influx of bookings in recent days, following confirmation of plans to relax border controls on 1 July.
Thousands of islanders have been unable to see family for more than a year, and a lot of people are booking trips that will unite them with their loved ones again.
“The influx we’ve had is people trying to get back to see family,” said Agency Manager at Trafalgar Travel, Charlie Coyle.
“Every day last week we were booking people to the UK or Madeira."
Pictured: Guernsey has a large Portuguese population, many of whom have been unable to see family members since the start of the pandemic.
“The nightmare for us has been knowing all the requirements for each country," said Mr Coyle. "It’s great that we’ve now aligned with the UK’s traffic light system. Just about every trip goes from the UK.”
Most people are splashing their cash on holidays in 2022, with the number of bookings building rapidly in the past few months as travel confidence has grown.
“It’s going to be a phenomenally busy year next year," Mr Coyle added. "People are booking the bigger trips from October onwards."
He said the cruise line industry has been the busiest, with a large influx of people booking on trips in 2022.
“People feel safer on cruise ships, with everyone being tested before they get on board and the ability to plan well in advance.” Guernsey's 2021 cruise season was cancelled earlier this year.
Pictured: Cruises have been mooted as one of the safer ways to travel, as people tentatively start to book holidays.
It’s not just travel out of the island seeing a boost - agents have seen an increase of people booking visits to Guernsey too.
“We’ve seen bookings to Guernsey improve month on month,” said the General Manager of Premier Holidays, Beverly Scarr.
“Following Friday’s news, we anticipate this will continue to increase over the coming weeks, especially in light of the confusion over the UK government’s traffic light system and the lack of countries on the green list – this represents an excellent opportunity for Guernsey this year,” she said, alluding to the lack of places Brits can travel to without restrictions the summer.
“March and April bookings were 382% up on the previous two months,” said Ms Scarr. “We expect bookings taken in June to be only marginally down on bookings in 2019.
“Our clients are also spending more money, some are staying longer, upgrading their hotel or room type – people have waited so long for a holiday they want to make this one special,” she said.
Pictured: The travel industry has experienced some changes, with lots of providers reportedly becoming more flexible to cope with the prospect of sudden cancellations.
The relaxation of the borders has been welcomed across the board, with spikes in bookings since the traffic light system was confirmed.
“It’s great news that Guernsey has taken this decision,” said MD of CitiTravel Group, Robert MacKenzie.
“We saw an uplift in demand on our website over the weekend, and we’ve been seeing a steady stream of bookings anyway, with people hoping for this change,” he said.
Mr Coyle from Trafalgar echoed those sentiments, concluding: “Travel is back on the horizon.”
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