Summer 2020: Quarantine movement will trigger “everyday bank holiday traffic” as prices soar above £ 2k for a week at Center Parcs

At 7pm on Sunday, the Prime Minister will effectively cancel millions of overseas holidays – and create a tangle of trouble for the UK tourism industry.

Boris Johnson will confirm that almost everyone returning to the UK later this month will face 14 days of mandatory self-isolation.

The move, which it will justify as preventing a second spike in coronavirus cases, has angered airlines and travel companies.

They say it will cancel all overseas vacations for most of the summer and clamp down on reservations for the fall.

Travel agents and tour operators are poised for increased demands for vacation reimbursements when they start receiving calls on Monday morning.

Meanwhile, airlines and airports will examine the remnants of their “Project Takeoff” plans ⁠– gradually restoring links in time for the main summer months of July and August.

Brian Strutton, Secretary General of the Association of British Airline Pilots, said: “The aviation sector already faces 23,000 job cuts, with the potential for many more in the coming weeks and months.

“The government’s proposed 14-day quarantine proposal for incoming international travelers will put even more pressure on the industry for the foreseeable future.”

Conversely, by ruling out international travel for most or all of the summer, once the closure is alleviated, millions of families will seek UK vacations with– with some dire consequences.

As families realize that their planned getaways to the Mediterranean or Florida will not take place, the demand for vacations in Center Parcs is increasing.

The company’s locations in Bedfordshire, Cumbria, Nottinghamshire, Suffolk and Wiltshire are currently closed, but are taking reservations as of May 29.

For the last week of August, the cheapest hostel for a family of four in Woburn Forest is £ 2,128, which is equivalent to £ 76 per person per night.

The following week, when many schools are likely to start, the price falls by £ 800.

Malcolm Bell, executive director of Visit Cornwall, cautioned that space in the county may simply not be available. He said The independent: “Many companies already have between 50 and 85 percent of reserves for much of July and August, so there will be limited capacity to fill.

“We will need to maintain capacity at a level that is safe for guests, safe for staff, and safe for local communities. So many of those who want to book a stay in Cornwall this summer may have to wait until September. ”

Reaching vacation destinations is also likely to be full. Transportation Secretary Grant Shapps said social distancing measures on board the trains will reduce capacity by 90 percent.

Since summer services to coastal resorts are normally crowded, train operators will face serious difficulties in controlling demand.

Instead, many rail commuters will switch to adding cars, increasing pressure on the roads.

AA President Edmund King warned: “Every day in the summer after closing has the potential to be like a congested bank holiday on the roads.

“We all know the setbacks experienced on the A303, the M5 to the southwest, the roads to the Lake District and the coast on a bank holiday. This could become the new normal. “

He called on tourists to try staggering departure dates to try to ease traffic jams: “In addition to staggered working hours, we need to stagger vacations.”

While the quarantine decision will cause massive financial damage to UK airlines and airports, there were hopes that a “blockade” in the summer could give a short-term boost to the British coast and countryside.

The annual tourism balance of payments deficit, the excess amount that British tourists spend abroad compared to the amount that foreign tourists enter ⁠, is normally £ 25 billion.

But Joss Croft, executive director of UK Inbound, warned that domestic tourism cannot compensate for the loss of foreign visitors.

Told the BBC P.M program: “That 14-day quarantine is going to postpone almost everyone traveling to the UK.

“That will have a massive impact on 10 percent of the population employed in tourism.”

Croft said that domestic visitors, who spend two-thirds less than international visitors, will not make up for the loss of foreign income.

“While welcome, it really is not going to make up for that £ 23 billion deficit entering the UK of international visitors,” he said.