Suffolk travel agent says industry has a lot of healing to do despite restrictions lifting
All restrictions on people arriving in to the UK have ended
The Transport Secretary has announced the government will remove the remaining restrictions on international travel for all passengers ahead of the Easter holidays.
From today (Friday 18 March), all COVID-19 travel restrictions will be lifted, including the passenger locator form (PLF) for arrivals into UK, as well as all tests for passengers who are un-vaccinated.
It's been described as a 'landmark moment' as England is one of the first major economies to remove the last of the Covid-19 travel restrictions.
The Government says though it has "a range of contingency measures in reserve, which would enable it to take swift and proportionate action to delay any future harmful variants of COVID-19 entering the UK should the need arise."
The travel industry has been massively affected by Covid, we spoke to Andrea Powell from Idelo Travel in Suffolk to see how the pandemic has affected her business and how she feels about these restrictions being lifted.
" I think it's (travelling) changed beyond all recognition and I think the travel industry is being in absolute tatters.
"I think to be honest with regards to... not being able to trade, imagine if you're a business not being able to sell anything for six, nine months, 12 months, how do you survive?
"So I think that there's a lot of rebuilding still to be done to be honest."
We asked whether or not she thought the lifting of the restrictions would bring more business: "I think the change in the arrangement has helped for some people wanting to do some more immediate travel plans."
However she also believes many people will be more concerned with other issues such as Russia and Ukraine and the cost of living, over travelling.
"Russia and Ukraine is actually having quite an impact on people at the moment also. And I think the rising costs is kind of making people would just. So there's a little bit of uncertainty I think still up.
"There is a bit of holding on still at the moment, think it all sort of gradually ease as people get a bit more confidence, but I still think it's the a bit uncertain.
"The removal of the of the passenger locator has never been one of the key drivers of people not going.
"There's still the restrictions in other countries and I think it's probably things like that which are more influence in people at the moment.
"I think the UK obviously is very forward in opening up things up and I think that obviously every little helps.
"But I think that the form in itself is not gonna make somebody jump up and book a holiday.
"I think there are there are other bigger issues and it's one less faff which is always nice. But I think there's a lot more still to happen for travel to become.
"And I just think that it's generally I think people need some, some a bit more sort of certainty.
"I think COVID is still quite rife and I think that other countries are still have fairly hefty restrictions that are lifting.
"But if you don't want to wear masks or you don't want to have to do a PCR before you enter into a country, then that's sort of very much behind where the UK position is with regards to entry into our country."
She told us how long she thinks it's going to take to get back to normal: "I think it will be slow progress. I think that people are are still quite desperate to get away.
"But I think the overarching concern at the moment is how to put petrol in your in your tank and how to how to kind of deal with the energy prices and things like that.
"I think once people see how that happens then I think they may get a bit more confident.
"I think that puts quite a lot of pressure on people.... And that's why I think that people leave it till a bit later as well. So they know where they stand.
"They know what they're doing and they do have the money to be able to do this."
Overall she said: "I think it's been a very, very hard two years.
"I don't think that the big bounce that that everyone was hoping for has kind of happened.
"I think that there are some more difficulties that that lie ahead.
"But I think that compared to two years ago when it was in an an absolute turmoil of you never knew whether you were sending customers to an airport that was going to have a flight going, or a country open and then clearly vaccinations and the progress that has been made is is quite phenomenal.
"But I don't think it's over. I think it will come, but I think it's gonna take a lot longer than people first hoped."