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Spanish holidays remain ‘on hold’ until next summer

Spain remains the most-booked country for next year as the reintroduction of UK quarantine rules quashed demand for this summer.

The country was “barely booked” following the government’s move to re-impose 14-day self-isolation on travellers returning from the Spanish mainland, the Balearic and Canary islands.

However, Spain remained a key seller for 2021, taking around 45% of all bookings.

Turkish and Greek destinations were the most booked in the past week, closely following foreign holiday search trends.

But while the two countries remain dominant for this summer, Greece did not feature at all for summer 2021 and Turkey took just a fraction of the bookings of Spain.

The findings emerge in the latest icelolly.com snapshot of the travel marketplace in the past seven days.

Tenerife, Majorca and Costa Blanca all saw their share of destination search drop by between 45% and 53% in the past seven days.

However, alternatives that remain on the UK government’s ‘safe list’ where travellers are exempt from 14-day quarantine on their return achieved big share gains, with the Greek islands of Corfu and Crete each up 80% week-on-week.

Other beneficiaries included the Antalya and Dalaman areas of Turkey, plus Rhodes and Malta.

Kos, Dubai and Croatia, outside the top ten destinations, all saw their share of search grow by more than 60% over the previous week.

Interest in last-minute August getaways continued to grow, with many looking for other options to Spain and its islands.

Meanwhile, July 2021 saw a 50% increase in searches, continuing a week-on-week trend of demand for overseas trips next year.

Seven nights remained the most popular holiday duration for 2021, although search share rose for longer 10, 14 and 21-night trips against “notable declines” for short breaks of between tree and five nights.

Icelolly.com head of travel deals, Chris Webber, said: “As expected, the new about Spain that broke on the weekend of 25th/26th July quashed demand for travel to mainland Spain, the Balearics and the Canaries for summer 2020.

“Both searches and bookings for areas in Turkey and the Greek islands shot ahead of those for Spain as people still looked for viable summer 2020 holiday options.

“There’s still a lot of love for Spain though, but definitely as a summer 2021 destination – it’s the most booked country for travel in summer next year, a travel period we saw share of search increase for, too.”

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