On The Beach pause sales until September
On The Beach announce that they are pausing holiday bookings until September, this also includes holidays to countries included on the UKs GREEN list.
On The Beach, one of the UKs biggest online travel agents, said it won't be selling any holidays for June, July or August due to "continuing uncertainty around international leisure travel".
Simon Cooper the firm´s chief executive said: "There's nothing we want more than to be able to send customers on holiday, but with the current number of unknowns, we don't think that now is the right time for customers to book new holidays departing in the next few months."
Mr Cooper from On The Beach also stated that the company would not be offering foreign holidays to "green list" countries because "it is very likely that we will see regular fluctuations in destinations' traffic light classifications".
"Given this, there is too much uncertainty for us to take new bookings with confidence that they will go ahead, or for us to know the potential inconvenience or incremental costs that customers might experience or incur," he said.
"Unlike many of our competitors, we have no interest in selling holidays that are unlikely to happen, as our business model enables us to put customers first, rather than needing to get cash in the door to contribute to high fixed costs, and offering refunds in the form of a voucher when holidays get cancelled."
This is a very different stance to some other companies such as EasyJet who have said it would let people "make up their own mind about their holidays" and Tui who will begin offering holidays to countries classified as amber, despite government advice remaining not to travel for leisure.
Last September On The Beach and LoveHolidays made the headlines when they announced their resignation from ABTA, in a move to avoid paying full refunds to some customers hit by coronavirus cancellations, this decision had an impact on people chasing refunds for package holidays which they themselves had to cancelled due to the Foreign Office advising against non-essential travel to certain destinations, such as Spain, yet the firm itself had not cancelled the holiday. On the Beach and Sunshine Holidays did however reassure customers that package holidays booked with Loveholidays remain financially protected by the 'gold standard' Air Travel Organiser's Licence (ATOL) scheme.
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