Safety takes precedence over price for travellers in 2021

travel safety

Brits are willing to pay more to ensure they have safe, quality holidays, says a new report from AllClear Travel Insurance, and travel cover will be a key consideration

According to an AllClear Travel Insurance report, which assessed consumer attitudes towards travel throughout the course of the pandemic era, Brits are keen to get travelling, and would prioritise quality and safety over price.

Key takeaways from All Clear’s report include that:

  • People are keen to get travelling. Two-thirds of Britons want an overseas holiday in the summer; the percentage of people looking to book a short-haul break doubled from 24 per cent in July to 51 per cent in November; the appetite for long-haul breaks tripled from 10 per cent in July to 30 per cent in November. 
  • Safety is the top priority for holidaymakers, not price. Forty-four per cent of respondents said they wanted to visit a country with a good Covid record, and, in general, Brits were prepared to spend £1,335 more than they would usually on their holidays to ensure their trips would be as safe as possible. This rose to £1,644 for those with underlying health issues. 
  • Insurance is an important factor for holiday plans. Thirty-six per cent of people noted that having the best insurance cover possible, including cover for Covid, was top of their agenda.

Vaccine fuels an appetite for travel

AllClear’s report also highlighted that more than half of UK adults (55 per cent) said they would feel comfortable going on holiday again as news of a possible vaccine emerged at the end of 2020. And this interest in travel was strongest amongst older people, and was consistently popular across all UK regions, AllClear says.

“Covid has been an assault on people’s most basic freedom – the freedom to travel. And we expect to see an emphatic holiday boom this summer as the vaccine helps us to turn the tide on this terrible pandemic,” said Chris Rolland, CEO of AllClear Insurance. “There’s no doubt that the travel industry has taken a severe multi-billion-pound knock but, for 2021, UK consumers are intending to travel and their focus is now more on safety and quality rather than a hunt for a bargain break.”