France lifts UK travel curbs, opening up ski holidays once again

France has now eased coronavirus travel restrictions for the UK. With this move, ski resorts in France are looking forward to welcoming British skiers. Earlier, the French government had banned all non-essential travel during the year-end holidays. This was done in order to prevent the Omicron variant of the virus from spreading. The ban was in place from December 18 onwards.
The Alps attract massive crowds during the year-end holiday season, but the French government decided to impose a blanket ban on all non-essential travel, forcing British ski enthusiasts to cancel their holiday plans.

Vaccinated travellers entering France from Friday onwards are required to show only a negative PCR certificate, or an antigen test report that must be taken 24 hours before departure. Travellers who are unvaccinated will need a compelling reason to travel. Such travellers will need to quarantine themselves for a period of 10 days, the address of which must be shared with security forces.
The Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) said in a statement, "Thousands of people head there for ski breaks at this time of year, so this will be a huge relief for customers with holidays booked there for the next few weeks, who have been waiting anxiously for news."

The French resorts located in Savoie, and Haute-Savoie areas had 10 to 20% less footfall during the Christmas and New Year period, when compared to 2019 numbers. Britons actually made up 15% of all travellers coming to the ski resorts in France.

The French resorts in the Alps can now hope to welcome more visitors and expect to recuperate from the loss that they faced over the New Year.