Figures reveal 20% of people are waiting to book and 36% plan to stay at home because of Covid-19. The travel industry is seeing unprecedented losses of $29.3 billion globally.
Investigating the effect the Coronavirus has had on the UK’s travel industry, holiday home insurer schofields.ltd.uk surveyed 1,500 people living in the UK about their travel plans for this year and whether they’ve been affected.
How has Coronavirus affected your travel plans this year?
- I’m staying home this year 36%
- I’m waiting to book 20%
- I’ve booked, but thinking about cancelling 10%
- I’ve had to cancel 3%
- No affect 5%
- Other 26%
Respondents also fed back their feelings on the whole situation:
- “I work in travel management; it has massively affected me.”
- “I'm a last-minute person. No stress, no fuss!”
- “I've booked, but probably not cancelling unless reports come out of the virus spreading to areas I'm going.”
36% of people are choosing to stay at home this year and not considering travelling outside the UK. The number of recorded cases in the UK are at 163 (at the time of writing) and are increasingly on the rise. What we know so far: it’s advised not to travel to those infected areas, to keep washing our hands effectively with hot water and soap, sanitising where necessary, covering your mouth and nose when coughing and sneezing away from people, and to use disposable tissues.
There has also been advice issued on self-isolating not only if you have the virus yourself, but also if you have been in contact with someone who has it or have travelled to an area which has been highlighted by the government as an area of risk.
Still a deciding factor for some people, 20% answered they’re waiting to book their holiday(s) this year. There’s uncertainty for travellers at the moment. What is the best solution at the moment? Is waiting a few months the best move ahead right now?
People are staying in rather than booking flights because of self-isolation now. It was reported just a matter of days ago that UK travellers are favouring swapping their usual holidays abroad for something closer to home as a way to avoid coming into contact with coronavirus, however due to the advice being updated to encourage people to self-isolate if they’ve come into contact with someone with the virus and cases on the increase, even these types of staycation are beginning to suffer.
Phil Schofield, Head of Inbound Marketing at Schofields said: “The travel industry has been hit tremendously by Covid-19; many companies have lost a lot of revenue and business. As well as putting plans to travel abroad on holiday on hold, people are starting to think twice about where they go in the UK. So even if people choose to stay home this year, will we see an increase in visitors to UK attractions or will they also be also impacted even more as tourists from home and abroad stay away?"
He continued: “Although we are seeing holiday cottage bookings for the UK on the rise at the moment because people are not wanting to travel outside the UK, we could see this plateauing as the virus spreads around the UK, causing people to cancel UK travel plans as well. What we have seen so quickly is how businesses across the travel sector have been impacted and uncertainty travellers face, whether they have already booked and don’t know if they might be forced to cancel or just not knowing whether they can even plan to travel.”
Tatiana is the news coordinator for TravelDailyNews Media Network (traveldailynews.gr, traveldailynews.com and traveldailynews.asia). Her role includes monitoring the hundreds of news sources of TravelDailyNews Media Network and skimming the most important according to our strategy.
She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication & Mass Media from Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens and she has been editor and editor-in-chief in various economic magazines and newspapers.
