This week’s travel trends
(Thursday 26 March) Here are some stories you may have missed in the world of travel this week:
Travel companies launch initiatives to help communities
Hotel chains such as Best Western and accommodation services such as UnderTheDoormat plan to offer free beds to NHS staff, and rough-sleepers in London will be given the chance to self-isolate at two InterContinental Hotels Group properties. Similar initiatives are being launched around the world, including in Italy, Portugal and South Africa, while cities such as Madrid and New York are converting hotels into hospitals. Other travel companies are comping up with different solutions, including Indie Campers, which is offering vehicles to be used as makeshift ambulances and food delivery trucks, and Trip.com, which plans to donate one million surgical masks.
Read more about UK initiatives here
Read more about initiatives from around the world here
Tourism boards respond to the outbreak
Destinations around the world have been asking travellers to stay home, with Portugal, Wales and Thailand among those encouraging people not to travel. Some tourism boards are already looking to the future, while others, such as Helsinki and Norfolk, are rounding up virtual experiences that people can enjoy from afar. To keep potential visitors entertained, Discover Puerto Rico is hosting virtual cooking and cocktail-making classes on its Instagram page this weekend.
Travellers are looking ahead
According to a research by Holiday Extras, Brits are already booking trips for later in the year, with 23% of those who have travelled within the last three months saying they would be on the first flights deemed safe. Sojern also registered a very early spike in global travellers booking flights to the UK and Spain for January 2021 — possibly a result of EasyJet, Jet2 and Jet2holidays unveiling winter 2020-2021 sales and summer 2021 programmes early.
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