Holiday Ban Is a Kick in the Teeth for Tourism and Hospitality, Says Hotel Owner
English hotelier Sir Rocco Forte has written a scathing piece in the Mail about the Government’s ban on foreign travel. Covid rules which come into force today mean that it is illegal to go to an airport without a “reasonable excuse”, with rule-breakers facing fines of £5,000. Sir Rocco says that “this holiday ban is yet another kick in the teeth for my industry, hospitality, and for the whole economy, which relies heavily on international trade and tourism”.
The past year has seen countless erosions of our once-cherished freedoms to deal with Covid. The latest is an incomprehensible ban on foreign travel. …
So-called “non-essential” foreign travel will be banned until at least June 30th – although, given the Government’s fondness for repeatedly extending restrictions into our freedoms, some doubt that even that date will be met. Former Government adviser Professor Neil Ferguson said last week: “I think we should be planning on summer holidays in the UK, not overseas.”
This holiday ban is yet another kick in the teeth for my industry, hospitality, and for the whole economy, which relies heavily on international trade and tourism. The UK is on course to have a tourism industry worth over £257 billion by 2025 – almost 10% of GDP and supporting almost 3.8 million jobs, about 11% of all the employment in this country.
Frankly, the Government’s approach makes no sense. In January, Health Secretary Matt Hancock told us we would be able to “cry freedom” when the most vulnerable in society had been vaccinated. In a great success story for the NHS, we have now inoculated more than 30 million people, giving protection to the groups that account for 99% of Covid deaths.
All our most vulnerable will have had the option of taking a second jab by the end of April – and we know the vaccines work.
But now the doom-mongers scare us with talks of “new variants” of the virus, even though viruses mutate all the time and most scientists say our existing vaccines could be tweaked to deal with them.
Exemptions to the Government’s travel restrictions are permitted for work, medical needs, education, weddings and funerals.
Sir Rocco points out that the cost of prioritising “beating” Covid above all else is greater than the cost of Covid itself.
The political calculation seems to be that the damage to the economy, the harm caused to mental health, a record NHS waiting list of 4.6 million (with the missed cancer diagnoses and other serious problems that brings), a huge surge in unemployment and bankruptcy can all be excused as long as ministers are seen to be doing everything they can to fight the virus. These are skewed priorities.
Instead, what we are going through now and will face in the near future is thanks entirely to Government decisions – and is an unmitigated disaster.
His concerns about the damage being done by Government regulations to the hospitality sector have been echoed by nine Conservative MPs who have written in today’s Times that “kneejerk demands to sacrifice an industry carry costs”.
Failing to reopen air travel would be devastating to exporters, as well as our tourism and hospitality sectors.
Sir Rocco’s piece is very much worth reading in full.
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So it’s illegal to even go to an airport. Even if you have a reasonable excuse, you have to be tested before they let you leave. And yet, the British covid strain is supposedly wreaking havoc all over the world. How, exactly? Last i checked, the English Channel is more than 6ft wide.
Because the idea that types ‘travel’ is a complete nonsense. I say types because apparently virus ‘strains or variants’ have to be significantly different in certain respects to be classified as such. The changes we have seen so far in covid are minor and don’t qualify, even though most media, politicians and other scientists constantly use the terms.
Anyway the virus changes a bit because of environment etc, like all virus it tries to be more easily spread without killing its host, so changes should make it less of a problem than it already is. This happens wherever it is, it certainly does not depend on a host getting on an aircraft for a thousand miles or more. The problem in the UK is that about 50% of the world’s genome recognition work happens in the UK. So everytime there is a change there is a 50% chance it will be picked up in the UK first. So then the media, politicians and SAGE are given a new opportunity to go even nuttier.
Just over a year ago it became sort of illegal to be lurking at a train station with the apparent intention to travel without reasonable excuse.
That did not survive examination by the Courts.
the sooner its over, the sooner there is a reckoning for the politicians. its in their interests to talk up the threat so that their ridiculous meddling looks smaller by comprison.
the truth will out – should have stuck to the plan – nothing we did was of any use. a bit of handwashing and advice to be careful for vulernable people would have sufficed. keep calm and carry on. it was the panic that made them empty the hospitals into the care homes which is what caused most of the deaths
I hope you’re right about the truth. But either perpetual restrictions or a whitewash of an enquiry is likely to keep it hidden.
the Chinese communists couldn’t hide their stupidity that killed 45 million of their own citizens because ‘they had a great idea for saving people’ and ended the career of Chairman Mao
I doubt our own retards will do better
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign
I do hope you are right – but it will, at best, be a Pyrrhic victory of epic proportions!
the main thing is the victory – so it doesn’t happen next winter and the winter after
at some point they will write a new pandemic response plan
it will either
a) look like the one they threw in the bin
b) just say ‘shit yourself and lockdown’
I think a) is likely because no-one wants to live like this. and not many people want to say so while we are ‘in the midst of it’
I expect more heads to rise above the parapet as we get into summer
Then again I thought this last summer
Indeed. I too think Steve is being a bit optimistic. 12 months or so, with previous and emerging data as plain as the proverbial nose – but Pinocchio still rules with his long and pointy one.
I’m a natural optimist! It’s not like everyone in the world wants to cover this up.
and yes, the data seems obvious to us – but not the modellers who still don’t accept seasonality. but you can’t cover this stuff up forever. I think the case has been proved – it just hasn’t made it into the media narrative yet
I’ll just add I have been a computer modeller for 25 years for scientific applications. You can make your model agree with anything by tweaking a few ‘tuneable variables’. The more data you need your model to agree with the more ridiculous the twiddling becomes. If your model is wrong it will be found out in time as more data comes in. I imagine the Imperial team is doing a lot of twiddling – but there are lots of decent scientists out there that probably think Ferguson is a wanker and the Imperial team are full of shit – why would they join in the cover up?
In answer to your last question – there’s quite complex (and conflicting) psychology involved. One of the problems with the sceptic case has been the resort to simplistic, dismissive explanations.
Just one strand – don’t underestimate the ‘circling the wagons’ loyalty factor. I’ve seen that one in operation.
They will circle the wagons but everyone will be outside looking in and laughing
Would it be possible to replace “probably think” with “know for sure”?!
It’s not the media narrative that is my prime worry and cause of thinking this way. It’s the widespread clear belief in that narrative – despite common rule-breaking (there’s a mass schizophrenia/cognitive dissonance in operation).
A massive switch of perception has to take place before reality embeds itself.
I agree – its is a medieval mass hysteria. But I think if the media led, people would follow and the government would reluctantly follow them and throw SAGE under the bus
I still think most people are skeptic/open to persuasion. I don’t believe any polls. They don’t reflect who I know. Even the most lockdown of people I know have had enough and will prefer to blame someone for lying to them than accept they were idiots
“I still think most people are skeptic/open to persuasion.”
That’s where we differ.
My experience suggests that the fundamental narrative is deeply embedded. There is some scepticism over detail – but not over the essence of that narrative re. a ‘deadly virus’.
‘Open to persuasion’? I don’t know, but that underlying belief is, in the end, massively strong, and generally has a stronger hold than openness to the sceptical analysis.
Of course, one counter-force is that people don’t like admitting gullibility.
It was a massive, lie-driven shift in perception that created Zombie Britain.
If it can shift one way, it can shift back the other, just as quickly.
I’m not sure that wholesale quoting of MSM articles is a great idea. Look at this :
“All our most vulnerable will have had the option of taking a second jab by the end of April – and we know the vaccines work.“
Am I right in my calculation that the bill for covid is costing every man, woman and child about £150 per day?
Not to argue with you, just the opposite, but it’s not the “bill for Covid” which is the problem, is it? (Though I agree “bill for Covid” is a convenient shorthand for all the consequences). The problem is it’s the “bill for the idiotic way the Uk, (and nearly all other) governments have reacted to the scare of Covid”. It is, admittedly, a genuine disease; it is *probable* that – in general – vaccinations do more harm than good; it is undeniable that lockdown is a disaster; it is undeniable that mask-wearing is little more than virtue-signalling; and, finally, it is undeniable that a nominally Conservative administration has presided over the biggest self-inflicted recession in the nation’s history.
Finally, again not arguing, £150/day x (say) 60 million = £9,000,000,000 (£9 bn). Is that about right?
If you don’t believe that vaccine passports have been in the pipeline for a while now, and despite official denial, just look at this… And from the EU website itself.
https://ec.europa.eu/health/sites/health/files/vaccination/docs/2019-2022_roadmap_en.pdf