The SPAA said on Thursday (5 August) it would now be early summer 2022 before agents in Scotland will "have any realistic revenue" despite France’s "amber plus" status being scrapped and the greater likelihood of stability of travel rules for Spain and Greece.
SPAA president Joanne Dooey said that the announcement, which saw a further seven countries added to the UK’s green list and the UAE and Qatar return to the amber list, wasn’t without merit, though, stressing it would hopefully "restore some public confidence in travel".
However, she said Scotland’s travel sector remained "in desperate need" of sectoral support. “These changes may prove to be too little too late for the Scottish market, in particular due to the timing of the Scottish school summer holidays," said Dooey.
"As these changes come into force on Sunday [8 August], many families will be preparing for the return to school of some pupils in the coming week. It means that the next time travel agents will have any realistic revenue will be early summer 2022.
"We reiterate our call for Scottish agents to be given business disruption support similar to that being given to our colleagues in Wales by the Welsh government.”
Jacqueline Dobson, president of Scotland’s largest independent Barrhead Travel, hailed the reclassification of the UAE "and other key transit hubs" as amber, but said as with every traffic light update, there was "always a caveat".
"This will open up some long-awaited long-haul destinations," said Dobson. "Scotland’s connection with Dubai will also reunite many thousands of friends and family as it’s a popular expat destination. We’ve already seen an increase in enquiries for Dubai over the last few weeks, and no doubt there will be a rush to secure holidays – particularly for September onwards."
Dobson, though, said the industry was still in the dark about how decisions on the traffic light regime were being made, and that this information would be "vital" to planning for a future recovery. She added the data was not clear, and there were constant changes within the framework – such as France "lurching in and out of the so-called ’amber plus’ category".
"Furthermore, these decisions are critical to the future of outbound travel and connectivity - particularly from Scotland as we simply cannot afford to lose any more routes than have already been lost to the pandemic," Dobson added. "Transparency and consistency are the only ways to guarantee customer confidence and ultimately, rebuild the industry.”
