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The sense of relief across the airline and tourism sectors was positively palpable this past week following confirmation that from July 19, UK passengers who have been double-jabbed will not be required to quarantine when returning to England from amber list countries. Flight and holiday operators reported an immediate surge in bookings following the announcement by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps. EasyJet said bookings to amber list destinations jumped by 400 per cent, with overall holiday bookings more than 440% up on the previous week. Similarly, British Airways and Tui experienced a swell in website activity. The change does not affect passengers travelling in and out of Scotland, as was noted by Jet2 chief executive Steve Heapy. Having that morning published accounts showing that the budget travel operator fell nearly £374 million into the red last year, Mr Heapy was by the afternoon striking a considerably more upbeat note.
The data shows shopper footfall is well down on two years ago (Andrew Milligan/PA)
The number of shoppers visiting retail destinations in June was nearly a third lower than two years ago as footfall recovery stalled, latest figures show.
Footfall decreased by 29.5% in June this year compared to the same month in 2019, which has been used for comparison in the SRC-Sensormatic IQ data as 2020 was such a turbulent year.
This is below the UK average decline of 27.6% and a 4.8% decrease from May 2021.
Meanwhile shopping centre footfall declined by 34.1% in June in Scotland compared to 2019.
Ewan MacDonald-Russell, head of policy and external affairs at the Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC), said: “The recovery in shopper footfall stalled in June in the second full month since shops fully reopened, with total footfall falling back by nearly 5% compared to the previous month.
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Scotland saw the steepest decline in shop footfall out of the four UK nations last month, according to retail industry figures.
The Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC) found shopper numbers were down by nearly 5% from May, and by 29.9% on the same period two years ago.
The UK average decline over the two years was 27.6%.
SRC said the disparity may have been driven by the lag in relaxing Covid restrictions north of the border.
Scottish shopping centres in particular continued to struggle to attract shoppers, with footfall more than a third (34.1%) below the 2019 figure.
Glasgow fared worse than any other Scottish city, with numbers down by more than 30% on June 2019.