The UK’s holiday rules have “reduced the public’s confidence” about taking a holiday according to travel trade body ABTA.
Mark Tanzer, ABTA Chief Executive said worries over changes to a country’s traffic light designation have “reduced the public’s confidence about taking an overseas break”.
He said that while public health “must come first” the Government needed to be “much clearer” about the decision making process behind the traffic light rule changes.
EasyJet boss Johan Lundgren has also called for clarity over the rules saying “now is the time for Government to simplify the rules around travel, make green truly green and restriction free, remove expensive and unnecessary testing requirements for the fully vaccinated travelling from amber countries, and put an end to this constant rollercoaster of changes.”
In total, there have been 50 changes made to the international travel rules since the Covid outbreak.
The high number of changes applies to England but a similar number was also seen in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with the devolved administrations mostly following England.
Analysis by the PA news agency found testing and quarantine rules for arrivals in England changed 50 times since March, when lockdown was first imposed.
The green, amber and red lists were have been updated every three weeks while the list of travel corridors, which allowed tourists to holiday without quarantining, changed almost every week when they existed between July 2020 and January 2021.
The frequent changes even caught out the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, who was in Spain when it was taken off the corridor list after just 16 days.
Green list countries can be visited without quarantining while amber list destinations will require self-isolation at home unless a person is fully-vaccinated.
Arrivals from red list states must quarantine in a hotel for 10 days.
