Tour operators will continue with a booking stop even after a travel ban
A group of 26 tour operators – with Joker travel and Travelworld being some of the best known – will not offer tourist tours until at least April 1. However, the current travel ban will end on March 1.
With the travel stop, the tour operators – together with the action group SOS Travel #Save or Sink – want to send a signal of ‘solidarity and active cooperation to politicians, virologists and consumers’. They want to offer the recently launched vaccination campaign every chance of success, ‘so that holiday trips can continue in complete safety and confidence from April 2021’.
‘We want to offer the traveler perspective as soon as possible and make travel dreams come true again. Because you don’t get infected with dreams, plans and books’, argue the operators. ‘We hope that this will demonstrate our social responsibility and profile the organized travel sector as a professional and reliable sector.’
Keeping travelers off for longer than necessary does have a price tag. The operators therefore hope for ‘extra financial and sector-specific support from the government to survive this crisis – which has been going on for a year for our industry’. There must be a real recovery plan for the sector, in consultation with the tour operators, it sounds.
The promotion is supported by Adagio, Joker Reizen, Travelworld and VOS Travel Ski Holidays. The full list can be found on the Facebook page of the Travel Express Benelux trade journal. At TUI, just about the biggest player, you can hear that he will not join the action. ‘With TUI we comply with what the government issues,’ says spokesman Piet Demeyere. “If the travel ban is extended, we will comply immediately.”