Travel news latest European hotels turning away UK bookings as distrust grows over traffic lights

Ongoing confusion and chaos over the UK’s traffic lights system is causing European holiday operators to reject British travellers, according to one industry chief.

“Hoteliers are turning away bookings from the UK in August because they don’t trust us â€" and European travellers are taking our beds and availability,” Noel Josephides, director of Aito, the Specialist Travel Association, and chairman of tour operator Sunvil, told The Guardian.

“There is no confidence; why should people trust us when we have the sword of Damocles constantly hanging over us and things could change and result in cancellations at any moment?”

It comes as Boris Johnson delivered a lifeline to summer holidays last night when he blocked the creation of a controversial new “amber watchlist” for foreign countries. This would have put the likes of Spain, Greece and France at risk of turning red imminently, for millions of British travellers regardless of their vaccination status.

There are today fresh calls from senior Tory MPs and industry leaders for Mr Johnson to go further and ditch the green-amber-red system entirely, replacing it with a single red list.

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