(Reuters) – Concerns over the new Omicron variant of COVID-19 and travel restrictions have caused a spike in cancellation rates, hitting growth in traffic related to holiday travel planning, online hotel search platform Trivago NV said on Tuesday.
Cancellation rates have increased by about 35% since November and with holiday travel-planning-related traffic falling 10%, the company said, adding that most travelers were choosing domestic destinations.
Overall traffic around holiday travel planning has slowed, growing by just 4% since the variant was discovered, Trivago added.
Fears over the variant grew after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned of a “tidal wave” of new cases, with the country reporting the first publicly confirmed death in the world due to Omicron on Monday.
(Reporting by Aishwarya Nair and Amruta Khandekar in Bengaluru; Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)
