Fenland boat hire firm sees summer visitors return 'with a vengeance'
Fox Narrowboats has seen more international visitors arrive this year
A boat hire company in March says it is seeing more visitors come from abroad for holidays this summer.
Figures from Visit England found that 9.7 million Brits people are planning a holiday at home over the August bank holiday weekend.
Paula Syred is the managing director of Fox Narrowboats, which has been running for 70 years.
She has seen more people coming from overseas as well as closer to home.
“Surprisingly we still get a lot of people from Cambridgeshire come for holidays, but equally we get just as many that come from overseas," Paula said.
"This year we’ve had visitors from Canada, the United States and Australia.
“Our international visitors are back with a vengeance.
"Advanced bookings for this year were very good and I think that’s because people either held deposits over from the Covid years, or they just needed something to look forward to."
The figures from VisitEngland's August Bank Holiday Trip Tracker Survey show an increase of 4.4 million on last year’s results whereas in 2019, 8.6 million people planned an overnight holiday trip.
"I'm sure with clever thinking we'll come through"
Patricia Yates, chief executive of VisitEngland, hopes that this year's long August weekend will give "a critical late summer lift" to businesses.
But despite seeing "probably one of the worst business periods I've seen in the last five years", Paula hopes this summer has helped the firm since the Covid pandemic.
"We were affected by the foot and mouth crisis in the early 2000s, we managed to bounce back from that," she said.
"So, I’m sure with some determination and clever thinking, we’ll come through this one.”