Travel Industry Update

Updated Post Pandemic Travel Industry Update


8 August 2022
The UK travel industry was severely impacted by the pandemic with over 600,000 redundancies in 2020 and a loss of nearly £115bn in sales over 2020 and 2021.
 
Restrictions have now been uniformly removed across the UK, with guidance replacing mandatory rules. For the latest on this guidance please see the links below:

Restrictions have also been removed in many locations overseas, however there are occasions where countries have re-imposed restrictions, so please refer to the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) guidance as countries may restrict travel without notice - Foreign Travel Advice
 
Travel providers continue to follow advanced cleaning procedures. Some may continue to ask travellers to adopt measures such as face coverings as a condition of service.
 
Should you need any assistance please contact your travel team or get in touch - PRIORITY
 
While rules have been lifted, the consequences of the pandemic and other factors continue to impact on the industry. Recruitment in the travel industry remains a real challenge and has severely impacted on service provision - this being the main reason for airport delays. Similarly industrial action has affected rail services. Furthermore, as some hotels have closed permanently or are only expected to reopen in 2023, this affects availability and price as there is less availability than before the pandemic. Costs continue to rise across the board, from food to laundry. As energy costs for businesses are uncapped the cost to heat hotels has gone up six-fold.
 
We are here to help you overcome these challenges, continue to meet your travel policy requirements, and keep you informed about issues and help.
 
We continue to ensure we are getting you the best deal - either by leveraging your buying power, our own, or through our membership of Advantage Travel Partnership which is a £4.5bn buying group, and have seen these kinds of savings over the last 12 months across all PRIORITY clients:

  • Accommodation would have cost around 22% more without the savings secured
  • Projects would have cost around 39% more without the savings secured - these additional savings are achieved by pre-booking and securing better terms, inclusions and of course availability
  • Travel would cost nearly double should the highest cost fares have been selected
  • Meetings and Events would have cost around 21% more without the savings secured
 We have visibility to these statistics, because every booking placed through PRIORITY follows your policy, helping us to demonstrate the support you are providing to the business. This also helps us to track data to support sustainability too. Not only that, but we make sure the bookings are billed correctly, avoiding thousands of pounds of erroneous charges.
 
Here are some words of thanks from our clients to the PRIORITY Team:
“You are a Superstar. You always pull it out of the bag.”
“Thanks so much for all your help this year, service has been fantastic.”
“Thank you so much for your time earlier and all the hard work you continuously put in to help me out, it is greatly appreciated.”
“A fine job today sorting new flights and an overnight airport hotel - please pass on my thanks.”
 
We provide a dedicated account management team, here when you need us, and who can’t wait to help you. If you have any queries at all, please do not hesitate to contact your team here at PRIORITY
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