Global Travel experiencing restriction roll-backs, unprecedented boom

By Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer

#Canada, April 15, 2022 – Canadians are ready to cruise once more, and the rest of the world is ready for vacation as well.

The US and UK are already struggling under a major Easter passenger boom resulting in flight cancellations left and right, as well as extremely long waiting times.

The problem? They just didn’t expect a boom this big.

The UKs Heathrow Airport said plans were for summer surge which is understandable considering the dramatic uptick in Covid-19 cases in January; many travel plans were waylaid.

Over the last seven weeks, after the UK announced the end to its restrictions, a domino effect has followed with countries rapidly loosening COVID protocols and families which had been stuck inside for the past two years, hurried to book their Easter getaways.

It has caused an unprecedented pileup at the airlines.

The Turks and Caicos is certainly not exempt from the travel boom TCHTA director Stacy Cox says hotels are booked through Easter on the islands.

In the Turks and Caicos’ second biggest market, on March 31, the Canadian Government announced it was “committed to the restart of the cruise season in Canada with mitigation measures in place for COVID-19.”

It also removed its ban against cruise travel for Canadian travelers instead advising caution.

Travel Pulse Canada also reports that Expedia is predicting huge travel increases from Canada for 2022.

Canada had been one of the more conservative western countries during the COVID19 pandemic.

In a report called the Traveler Value Index, Ariane Gorin, President, Expedia for Business said: “Travel is about to experience a year unlike ever before.”

And based on airport pileups it is.

The index found that 91 per cent of travelers plan to take a leisure trip in the next six months.  Seventy-two per cent of Canadian travelers expect to take a trip by car over the next 12-months, with nearly 1 in 5 (19%) expecting to take a trip by cruise or ship.

Interestingly more than half-Canadian say they are willing to spend more on travel now.

Again it bodes well for the Turks and Caicos as Canada is the Caribbean’s second largest feeder market.