On Friday (7 January), pre-departure Covid tests for inbound travellers were axed, while the Day 2 testing standard has been lowered from PCR to lateral flow. Newmarket said these moves would help "release pent-up demand" accrued over the past two years.
Head of trade sales Richard Forde said the company was both "cautious and positive" about 2022. "Clearly, the Omicron variant impacted demand, but prior to that, we were seeing healthy bookings for 2022 and 2023, so we expect to recover to those levels and beyond pretty quickly and we are already seeing positive signs," he said.
