Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Clients will doubtless be concerned by the current guidance from the UK Foreign and Commonwealth office advising against non-essential travel to or from the UK. This advice currently applies until 16th April 2020 any, thus, clients whose holiday departure date is prior to 17th April 2020 may be entitled to cancel or postpone their holiday.

Where the departure date is after 16th April, the advice issued by the UK FCO regarding avoidance of travel to specific countries including Italy and France is in relation to ‘imminent’ departures. Whilst there is no legal definition of ‘imminent', and each tour operator has its own process for managing future departures, it is generally considered to be travel within the next few days. In accordance with the guidelines issued by the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) Hargreaves and Nurse Holidays trading as Just Sardinia, Just Sicily and Just Corsica have stipulated a 14 day period as the limit for ‘imminent travel’, meaning that clients will only be entitled to request a refund of the amount paid for their holiday if the scheduled travel date to Italy or France is 14 days or less from the UK FCO advice being current. Accordingly, for any enquiry relating to the cancellation / amendment of a holiday where the departure date is more than 14 days ahead of that enquiry, our normal Terms and Conditions relating to cancellations will still apply.

Accordingly, for all holiday dates from the 17th April 2020 onwards, we encourage our clients to pay the balance of their holiday cost as normal as we are still hopeful that they will be able to enjoy their holiday as planned, particularly if their flights are still scheduled to operate and their accommodation has not given any indication that it will not be fully open and receiving guests on their holiday dates. In the worst-case scenario, if the current FCO travel advice continues to apply on the holiday dates, clients will be entitled to cancel. As Just Sardinia, Just Sicily and Just Corsica are ABTA members and an ATOL protected tour operator, all monies paid to us are protected under the UK Government-backed insurance scheme.

As an alternative to contemplating cancellation, we would encourage our clients to consider postponing their holiday to a later date in 2020 or in 2021 where possible, although this may have price implications depending on dates and availability of accommodation and on flight availability. If this alternative is of interest, please do let us know as soon as possible and we can propose possible alternatives based on your criteria. Unfortunately, however, if you were to cancel before the 14 days prior to the first day of the holiday booked with us, we regret that you would forfeit the deposit paid.

Below are the links to the UK FCO website guidance to travel and to the ABTA guidance on travel to countries affected by the travel advice issued by the UK FCO

• UK Foreign and Commonwealth office >
• ABTA >

For specific advice on how this situation may affect your holiday and travel plans, please contact our customer services department at customerservices@hnholidays.co.uk

The above information is believed to be correct at the time of issue 10:32 03/04/2020