End of the summer holidays spells dire straits for the travel industry

In normal times the summer season is when most travel businesses do the bulk of their trade, the surplus seeing them through the quieter months. This year they haven’t had a chance, writes Qin Xie

The multi-billion sector is at serious risk of collapse (iStock)

The August bank holiday usually signals the end of the summer. Not officially, for that comes in September at the autumn equinox. But certainly in practice, as many will normally be enjoying their last getaway before the weather cools and the kids return to school.

As I write, the pitter patter of rain outside, coupled with a cool breeze that can only pick up at this time of the year, is telling me this chaotic summer is almost done. It will come as a welcome relief for some – the heat had been too searing at one point, political and social tensions running too high, and the start and stop of international travel too abrupt. We haven’t made it to the other side of this awful pandemic yet, but I know all of us are more than ready to leave it all behind.

But for the travel industry, the end of the summer season is a terrifying prospect.

In normal years, the summer season was when most travel businesses did the bulk of their trade, the surplus seeing them through the quieter shoulder seasons. This year, they haven’t had a chance.

Like just about everything else this summer, travel was cancelled. In April, just ahead of Easter, one of the peak trading periods for the travel industry, the FCO put a blanket ban on travel “indefinitely”. Holidays were already being cancelled due to mounting travel restrictions, but now the government had effectively said “don’t even think about it”.

Thanks to the furlough scheme, the travel industry had a cushion. They were still bleeding from refund wounds, but at least there’s a bit of help at hand.

When the government announced its travel corridors at the beginning of July, and the FCO published a list of places exempt from its blanket travel ban, there was at last hope. For the public, it was a semblance of normality. For the travel industry, recouping some of their losses became a possibility.

But just as quickly, that hope was dashed. First Spain, Britain’s favourite holiday destination, was struck off the travel corridors list. Then France, Belgium, Malta, Austria, Croatia and others were kicked out in quick succession. By the time Portugal was added to the list, many people were too exhausted from the yo-yoing of emotions to book their holidays with confidence.

Which brings us roundly to now.

No one is sure of what the future holds – whether there will be a second wave, and what lies at the end of the Brexit transition period. What is clear is that once the summer is over, we shift into the shoulder season. Travel firms, still hungry and reeling from a lost summer, will enter an early hibernation. Except this time, with the furlough scheme being withdrawn, there is no safety net – it’s freefall ahead, and even the strongest may fail.

Travel association ABTA has called for “tailored support” for the industry, where 90,000 jobs are currently at risk. As we wave goodbye to the summer, it’s absolutely crucial that our government takes this plea seriously.

The travel industry isn’t a non-essential element that we can forget about. It’s an industry that’s worth hundreds of billions of pounds to the UK, that contributes to almost 10 per cent of our GDP and that supports millions of jobs – for the politicians hung up on numbers, that’s surely persuasive enough.

Yours,

Qin Xie

Acting travel editor