Why Europe's summer season could boost UK vaccination numbers

A boom in UK bookings for summer holidays in Europe makes it “highly possible” many people yet to be vaccinated against Covid-19 will be immunised, a leading behavioural scientist has said. Figures from digital travel agency Skyscanner show bookings for economy return travel from the UK this summer increased by 394 per cent in January 2022 compared with the previous month.

A survey by the same company found 40 per cent of British travellers intend to travel abroad in 2022 for summer holidays, with 15 per cent doing the same at Christmas and 13 per cent at Easter. So how could the desire to escape the UK this summer affect the country’s vaccination numbers?

The fundamental answer is convenience.

“It seems highly possible that incentivising people by telling them that they are going to have a very inconvenient time of going abroad for some vacation if they’re not vaccinated will then cause them to get vaccinated,” Tali Sharot, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, told The National. Our actions are “a result of potential rewards and potential punishment,” she said.

The summer holiday boom
The UK bookings bonanza was kick-started by the unwinding of Covid travel rules in early January, and has been incentivised by a smorgasbord of mouth-watering deals dished up by travel firms seeking to capitalise on the pent-up demand.

With one in four British travellers making guaranteed sun their destination priority, the perennial – and perennially sunny – British favourites Spain, Greece, Portugal, Italy and Turkey are drawing the most attention.

Skyscanner data show the fab five are the most booked European destinations over the last month for travellers from the UK for economy return travel this summer, with countries in Europe occupying seven places in its overall top 10.

Skyscanner’s top 10 summer destinations

Whilst the UK has been going full-steam ahead in one direction on the loosening of its Covid travel rules, many of the destinations proving so popular with aspiring British holidaymakers have been taking a less full-throttle approach – and in some cases reintroducing Covid restrictions.

The divergence between the UK and much of mainland Europe will be brought into even sharper relief this Friday when the UK removes all testing requirements for fully vaccinated travellers and those under the age of 18, regardless of their vaccine status.

By contrast, many destinations popular with UK holidaymakers have far stricter Covid vaccination rules, frequently requiring under-18s to be vaccinated.

Spain and France are first and eighth respectively in the Skyscanner table of most popular places for UK residents to book a summer holiday this January. Both countries require anyone who enters the country after February 12 to have had a Covid booster if their previous vaccinations were completed more than 270 days ago.

This means the 18 million people in the UK who received their second shot before mid-May would need to have been boosted to enter Spain or France come Saturday. While 37.5 million people in the UK have been boosted, according to the latest UK vaccine data, this still leaves 35 per cent of over-12s in the UK unboosted. Yet this isn’t evidence that all of those yet to be fully vaccinated or boosted are implacable anti-vaxxers.

As Prof Sharot stipulated, for reasons of convenience a rump will acquiesce to the shot if it means making their lives much easier. This is the logic behind President Macron stating in January that he intended to make life difficult for the unvaccinated.

The approach won't work on everyone.

“There are people who are not just hesitant to get the vaccine but have very strong opinions about this,” Prof Sharot said. “And it’s part of their identity, this whole idea that maybe vaccines are just not working, or there’s some kind of conspiracy. “I think for those people, simple inconvenience is not going to be strong enough to change their actions, but it will definitely have an effect on some of the population.”

Nonetheless, a comparison of current vaccination rates in France and the UK figures align with Prof Sharot’s view that convenience is still a strong motivator: France vaccinates more people each day than the UK.