The uptick came after pre-departure tests were scrapped on Friday (7 January) and the Day 2 testing standard was lowered to lateral flow.

Both changes came into effect across the UK at the weekend, returning the UK’s testing and travel regime to how it was prior to the emergence of the Omicron variant of Covid-19.

With many major firms eagerly anticipating a significant bump, it duly arrived with agents reporting being "swamped" with calls and new enquiries at the weekend.

Hannah Porter, managing director of Travel by Hannah, said her clients were feeling more confident booking a trip overseas due to the rollout of the Covid-19 booster jab and not having to worry about being stuck abroad if they tested positive on a pre-departure test.

"If you did that [pre-departure] test and it came back positive, it was matter of – ’what do you do?’ Is it covered by insurance? Do you miss work? So having that removed was really positive," Porter told TTG. 

"We’ve seen loads of new customers who aren’t confident to book themselves, so I’m really hopeful our industry will bounce back. Obviously, it will take a while to make up what we lost, but I’m confident we will have a very busy year ahead.

"Last week – actually by Friday (7 January) – we recorded as many sales [in revenue terms] as we had in the whole of December."

Gemma Antrobus, managing director of Haslemere Travel, said she was "very confident" about the summer. "I think we’ve started to get away from the feeling that high cases equal lockdown. That was the fear, that was the pattern we got into over the past 18-20 months.

"Now that we’ve had a period of time where the cases have been really high but haven’t gone into a lockdown, it’s kind of broken that cycle."

Antrobus said the number of enquiries she received last week was comparable with October when the UK’s travel and testing restrictions were at their most relaxed since the start of the pandemic.

"It’s been steadily increasing since the turn of the year, and since the restrictions were changed," she said. "I think there are a lot of people who have held on and now are just fed up – they want something to look forward to."

’Unless they go, it doesn’t mean a thing’

Advantage Travel Partnership leisure director Kelly Cookes said members were reporting clients’ feelings about international travel had changed since restrictions were eased. 

"I think I would describe it as more of a cautious optimism," she said. "We’re hopeful now this is the beginning of the end. But our members are also conscious that we’ve been here before, and what the long-term plan is? If there’s another variant, who’s to say borders won’t start closing again?

"A lot of members have got really good books of business for this year, but it’s still all about getting that business away. They’re definitely a lot more optimistic than they were, but we are still in a tough time."

Karen Marin Reyes, managing director of La Vida Travel in Newport, described the start of last week as "hell". "There is no other word for it," Reyes told TTG. 

"We came in and everyone wanted to move their holidays. It was really bad. We’ve been here for three or four years and never in our history have we come across something so bad."

However, on Saturday (8 January), Reyes said the agency saw a sharp uptick in bookings and enquiries. "It was the most we have sold in a day during Covid," she said. "But it’s a very hard one. We can get excited as we want, but unless they go, it doesn’t mean a thing.

"We’ve got about 100 enquiries to work on I would say, and they’re good enquiries as well. It’s really good, but they’ve just got to go."