Travel with Katie Butler: UK's Foreign Office has told travellers that they can still visit Iceland

Travel with Katie Butler, Total Travel, writes: We have lots of training events, conferences and of course Christmas to look forward to – the calm before the storm!

Of course, I didn’t expect to get caught up in an actual storm, and wow, storm Debi certainly caught up with us. Our small timber lodge in the middle of East Yorkshire took a battering as did many parts of the UK.If you have spare holiday days to take before the end of the year then November is a great time to get away and bag a bargain, especially if you are able to go midweek. We have access to hundreds of lovely sites across the UK, some with hot tubs and you can bag a four-night break at this time of year for under £200.We have received a few calls this week regarding our Iceland departures due to travel imminently. However, UK airlines are still operating flights to Iceland despite fears that a volcanic eruption could take place following hundreds of small earthquakes which have occurred every day over a two week period.

At the time of writing, the UK FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) are not advising against travel to the country. However, it states that while there is no current eruption, it is increasingly likely that one will occur.

It also advises – those planning on travelling to Iceland – to monitor local media for updates and follow the authorities’ advice on travel to the area. Tourists are advised to check for updates from the Icelandic Met Office, Safe Travel Iceland and the Almannavarnadeild Facebook and Twitter pages.

Should the FCDO advice change and advise against travel to the country then the airlines will have to act on this information and offer an alternative or refund.The countdown is on and next week Leanne our assistant manager and myself will be travelling to Turkey on the Jet2holidays VIP agent conference. Last week, Jet2holidays revealed further details on the event and announced that Olympic gold medalist Nicola Adams will be delivering a motivational speech as well as a boxing bootcamp.

Director of travel agent relationships, Alan Cross, said: “This year has once again seen our Partners2Success approach go from strength to strength, and we are very much looking forward to reflecting on our mutual successes with independent travel agency partners.”

Whilst I am very much looking forward to the event, I am still undecided if I will take part in the optional boxing bootcamp, I may delegate this part of the conference to Leanne.Following a quieter period, last week we found new bookings and enquiries a lot stronger with late bookings remaining in favour with December accounting for 12 per cent of our total bookings, and late bookings to the end of January a whopping 30 per cent.

Cruises were also extremely strong last week taking a 20 per cent share of our total new bookings.

Tenerife retained top spot for winter departures and top selling destinations for next summer were Turkey and Majorca.

TUI have now also also launched their Summer 2025 programme and we took a selection of bookings from those wanting to plan ahead.