On Tuesday (14 December), health secretary Sajid Javid announced all 11 countries on the UK’s red list would be removed at 4am Wednesday (15 December) – just three weeks after they were added to the category.
Advantage chief executive Julia Lo Bue-Said said the impact these changes have on consumer confidence, combined with the "stringent" testing measures that are in place, must be taken into consideration.
"Yet again, we are back to yo-yo decision making from the government, with all 11 countries now being removed from the red list just a few weeks after they were introduced," she said.
"This causes significant disruption for the travel industry and the hardworking travel agents who spent days unravelling bookings and rebooking planned trips.
"What we really need is for the government to stick to a process and make rational and reasonable responses based on the data available to them rather than suppressing demand for an already fragile economic sector."
Meanwhile, Joss Croft, chief executive of UKinbound, welcomed the move to remove the 11 countries from the red list, but said the UK’s testing requirements for vaccinated international arrivals continues to "stifle" businesses across the inbound tourism industry.
"The health secretary acknowledged that there is community transmission of Omicron in the UK, that it is fast becoming the dominant variant and that the justification for our travel restrictions are minimal," Croft continued.
"This negates the need for PCR testing and sequencing. The government needs to further act on these comments and immediately scrap day 2 PCR tests and quarantine on arrival."
’Hokey cokey’
Pilots union Balpa echoed UKinbound and welcomed the government’s move to reduce the red list, but said further steps are needed to ensure the right measures are in place to protect public health and prevent "further damage" to UK aviation.
The group urged the government to explain to the industry why the extra barriers to international travel are necessary, with data to support the explanation.
General secretary Martin Chalk said "every step forward seems to be accompanied by further ‘in out in out hokey cokey’ with our members’ jobs, our industry’s future and the country’s prosperity".
"The government should be using the data to make consistent, evidenced based decisions - anything else risks people’s lives, livelihoods and health," he added.
