After nearly a year there is finally light at the end of the tunnel. I don’t know about you but the announcement from Boris Johnson actually gave me a lift. In two weeks time it will be a whole year since this nightmare began and to actually be able to look forward to something is a real fillip.
I don’t know anybody who said last March, well that’s us stopping for a whole year! All you doom mongers out there who bang on about how can he name dates, well you may be right but it’s given a lot of people a little hope for the future. Many people have struggled throughout this and an offer of change for the better is a good thing. Most people I’ve spoken to have been buoyed by the news and all of a sudden of travel and holidays are back on the menu.
I spoke to a couple of people in the industry this week to see what destinations were doing well.
Andy Brewer, Sales Manager at Blue Sea Holidays said, “the current winners are Tenerife, Crete, Corfu, Lanzarote and Rhodes.
By and large Spain hasn’t seen the surge in bookings that the Eastern end of the Med has seen although there has been an increase.
Almost all bookings are August onwards with a few June and some July.
The uptick whilst very welcome will probably peak at current level (which is still way down on what would be considered normal at this time of year) until such time as there is a more formal announcement of a beginning.
What the new protocols for travel are (ie quarantine, vaccine passports etc) will have a huge bearing on what sort of summer we will see – Spain so needs to get a move on.
Everyone is so much more positive than a week ago and that’s great news.”
Nicky who works for Tui told me “I would say Turkey, Spain and Greece are doing well. Cruises are really popular but the cruise industry like land based holidays don’t know when they will be able to start again. Canaries is really popular for winter as always and people are tending to book from July onwards hoping that all be be ok to travel by then.
Majorca is always the most popular Spanish destination with September and October still a top seller for families that want a short flight and not too far from home.”
So what’s the news our end?
I am actually going to praise our Government in a back handed kind of way. Albeit they were to blame in the first place. To take credit for the numbers coming down because of the restrictions they’ve put out there is a bit much considering they created the problem in the first place. I saw a headline from the President saying “we’ve brought the numbers down by 49%”, when you were the ones who had got them that high! After the debacle of the holidays early December, Christmas, New Year and Three Kings, they finally got their act in order. So to be honest it was inevitable firstly the numbers would rise and by bringing the restrictions in they would fall. I think this is why they are now being over cautious and relaxing the restrictions slower. They have finally realised that a long term plan has many more advantages than a short term one. I have said before that Easter should be forgotten about. We know now that international travel won’t happen particularly from the UK but we really shouldn’t risk National travel either. I realise this is tough for all of us but we must look to the Summer. This island will struggle to exist properly without it. I have spoken to bar owners, shop owners, restaurant owners and lots of people in the travel industry and every single one of them see the vaccine as the key to Mallorca working this Summer.
Take care everyone and enjoy your Weekend!
Richie presents the Radio One Mallorca Breakfast show Monday to Friday 07.30-11.00am on 93.8fm in Mallorca and 102fm in Calvià, online at www.radioonemallorca.com on mobile through their free App for IPhone & Android, The Tunein Radio App, iTunes, the Spanish TDT TV service and all smart speakers. If you can’t hear him on the radio then you’ll find him working at Pirates Adventure the islands number one night out and every now and again he may make an understudy appearance!
Follow him on Twitter @DadTaxi1 & Instagram @dad.taxi or feel free to email him at rprior@globobalear.com
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