A surge in holiday bookings for the spring and summer is being driven “vaccine-confidence” among the over-50s.
Travel firms are reporting a sales boom thanks to bookings from older customers, many of whom will be among the first to be inoculated against Covid-19.
Andrew Flintham, the managing director of TUI, said: “We’re seeing a customer base or age group that wasn’t booking before, that is starting to book. The over-50s, we assume, is on the back to the vaccine news.
“People are booking later into the summer, hedging their bets. More July and August and a lot of demand for September and October. People are booking longer holidays, we’re seeing more people booking 10 or 11 or 14 nights rather than seven. People are maybe catching up on what they’ve missed.”
Tour operators have also noticed a growing demand for multigenerational holidays.
“It is family time we’ve all missed. We can’t get away from our own families, but our broader families we can’t see, and that’s feeding into our choices,” said Mr Flintham.