ABTA has requested an urgent meeting with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, and the Secretary of State for Transport, Grant Shapps to discuss the travel and tourism sector’s current financial situation and its pressing need for financial support.

It follows other ABTA approaches to the Government on the same issues over the past two weeks.  ABTA has made its fresh request in the wake of France imposing a temporary ban on most travel from the UK.

ABTA Chief Executive, Mark Tanzer, said: “The Government has recognised the plight of the UK hospitality sector, with trade down by 40% in December. But at the same time, the travel industry, where income has been down by 78% this year, and further impacted by Omicron restrictions since late November, continues to be ignored.

“Over the past fortnight, we have heard nothing from Government about how travel and tourism might be supported.  The time to act is now.”

Notes to editors

ABTA has been a trusted travel brand for over 70 years. Our purpose is to help our Members to grow their businesses successfully and sustainably, and to help their customers travel with confidence. The ABTA brand stands for support, protection and expertise. This means consumers have confidence in ABTA and a strong trust in ABTA Members. These qualities are core to us as they ensure that holidaymakers remain confident in the holiday products that they buy from our Members.

We help our Members and their customers navigate through today's changing travel landscape by raising standards in the industry; offering schemes of financial protection; providing an independent complaints resolution service should something go wrong; giving guidance on issues from sustainability to health and safety and by presenting a united voice to government to ensure the industry and the public get a fair deal.

ABTA has around 4,000 travel brands in Membership, providing a wide range of leisure and business travel services, with a combined pre-pandemic annual UK turnover of £40 billion. For more details about what we do, what being an ABTA Member means and how we help the UK public travel with confidence visit www.abta.com.