The scourge of the new variant of the virus has caused the United Kingdom to again tighten its policy of travel restrictions and the new German government is already asking people to desist from travelling this Christmas. With the escalation of infections, the unrest is returning and denting the confidence of tourists: The direct effect of Omicron is that holiday bookings for summer 2022 will be delayed.
It is in the heat of Christmas family gatherings and in January and February that tourists from the two main source markets, Germany and the UK, are discussing where they will spend their next summer holidays. In Europe’s nervous climate these decisions will be postponed.
“The shake-up of the pandemic has changed the timing of bookings“, says Arturo Ortiz, Turespaña’s advisor in Berlin. “At Christmas, January and February the Germans booked en masse”, something that seems to be a thing of the past. “They are moving by few months; it is a change that can be generalized and it is very possible that there will not be as many reservations at the beginning of 2022,” says Ortiz.
Other sources in the British market agree with the Turespaña advisor in Berlin: “We’ll have to see how long the Omicron variant lasts, but bookings will be delayed”.
The main destination to suffer is the Canary Islands, the Atlantic archipelago attracts many Germans and Britons in winter. In this sense, sources from the tour operators emphasize that the alarm created with Omicron catches the Balearic Islands at its best time, “the are the worst weeks for the islands”, hence they are less affected.
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