France, The Netherlands, Monaco, Malta, Aruba and the Turks & Caicos Islands will from early tomorrow morning be removed from the Government’s exempt list for travellers returning to the UK.

Travellers who visited or made a transit stop in a country or territory that is not on the list -- regardless of the mode of transport they used -- need to self isolate for 14 days.

Although the Government announced its intention in early June to update the list on a rolling basis, this latest change to the travel corridors list has sent the already devastated travel industry into a spin.

Trade union for the transport and travel trade industries, TSSA condemned the government’s “utterly shambolic” extension of the quarantine regime which has seen travellers scrambling to get home today from France.

TSSA Leader Manuel Cortes said, “We understand that the government quarantine regime is in place to protect us from COVID-19. However, the way the policy has been adopted has at times been utterly shambolic and the government's messaging leaves an awful lot to be desired.

“Most importantly, Rushi Sunak's one-size-fits-all support policies for businesses and workers are causing great harm to our travel industry. Travel companies can't go to back business as usual until the public are confident that they can take a holiday with absolute certainty that it won't be disrupted by the need to quarantine. Even at this late hour is still not too late for the government to put in place a bespoke support package which stops our members losing their jobs whether they work in travel shops in or high-street, foreign exchange or Eurostar."

Tommy Lloyd, managing director at Medical Travel Compared said this latest announcement is understandably going to make a lot of people very worried about insurance.

"As it stands, the FCO has advised against all but essential travel to these countries from 04.00 BST on Saturday which means that the vast majority of travel insurance will be invalid. The main piece of advice I would give people travelling to any destination is to firstly make sure they have travel insurance and then secondly check that their travel insurance covers them for coronavirus related incidents. There are some COVID-19 specific travel insurance products on our panel that will cover you should you contract COVID-19 either before or whilst on holiday as well as provide cover should your holiday be cancelled," he said.

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