For some, there was an immediate uptick in interest, and even queues down the street, while for others, the government’s Global Travel Taskforce update on Friday (9 April) failed to fully unlock that pent-up demand.
Danielle Coulter, manager of Hays Travel Wallsend, said her team had a "lovely" first day back on Monday, with queues of up to 10 people waiting to pop in at times.
"The demand is there, and people are wanting to get away as soon as they can," she told TTG. "We’ve had an increase in UK bookings for 2021, where customers are amending their overseas holidays to 2022."
"We also received some lovely gifts of wine, flowers, chocolates and cakes from customers who were just happy to see us back in store and to be able to thank us for our help while we worked from home."
Lee Hunt, owner and managing director of Deben Travel, said while it was important for the shop to reopen and re-establish its high street presence, the 12 April restart saw the team working through new Jet2holidays cancellations after the operator pushed back its restart to 24 June.
"The shop is open, but we’re still doing a lot more cancellations than new bookings," he said. "We’re working through Jet2 cancellations.
"We’ve done some bookings for 2022, but very small amounts. Regular customers have come in to say hello. It was important for me to open the store because I didn’t want people to think we were going out of business."
‘We need more clarity’
Gemma Antrobus, managing director of Haslemere Travel, said that although the agency was currently between premises, new clients had been calling with "great enquiries" for the summer, some as early as June with others stretching further into the latter half of the year.
She added many, though, were also now waiting for the government’s "green list", due in early May, which will set out which countries will be subject to the least onerous travel restrictions.
Hunt echoed Antrobus’s concerns, and called for more help and certainty from government. "We need more clarity over the traffic lights system and which countries are in which bands," he said.
"How can people book this summer when they don’t know whether the destination will be in the green category?"
Agents in Scotland are expected to be able to reopen from 26 April when non-essential retail premises are given the go-ahead to resume trading on the high street.
No date has been set for such a restart in Northern Ireland, but it is understood Stormont is working to 26 April as well.
