A company has been offering breaks here next month and October even though the borders are currently closed.

The ’Historic Railways of the Isle of Man’ is being operated by Newmarket Holidays and has even been advertised in one of the biggest newspapers in Britain.

Newmarket bills the five-day breaks as costing from £470 per person based on two sharing with bookings available on various dates in September and October.

It also lists several Douglas hotels for accommodation but the manager of one of those hotels told the Manx Independent it was probably going to remain closed until next spring.

The holidays are being billed as ’Enjoy life in the slow lane and step back in time as you discover the jewel of the Irish Sea’.

It goes on to talk about having a ’marvellous short break in a corner of the world where daily life seems to be lived at a slower pace, TT races aside’.

But nowhere in the glowing prose is any mention of the fact that the island’s border is currently closed.

According to the holiday operator, September visitors can expect four nights’ dinner, bed and breakfast accommodation, free rail travel and entry to all Manx National Heritage attractions with a Go Explore Heritage card. And the holidays are escorted by a ’friendly, experienced tour manager’.

As a rule under stage four of the government’s border closure the island is out of bounds to visitors. The only people that can come in via air or sea are returning Manx residents coming back from breaks across along with a handful of key workers and people with special exemption papers.

People from Guernsey, which is Covid-19 free along with the Isle of Man, are able to fly using the special ’air bridge’ with airline Aurigny.

confusing

Freedom Travel director Jan Wozniak saw an advert in the Daily Mail promoting the rail holidays operated by Newmarket Holidays who are based in Wallington, Surrey. He told the Manx Independent: ’I can’t understand this. It is very confusing.’

Mr Wozniak who has expressed his frustrations about the ’minefield’ facing the island’s travel industry, said these advertised breaks were not helping matters as he and his staff work long hours at a challenging time.

He asked: ’Do they know something we don’t know about the borders?’

Edmund Southworth, director of Manx National Heritage, told the Manx Independent that Newmarket Holidays is a respected organisation which is in constant contact and knows full well the situation with the closed borders.

Mr Southworth claimed that in fact it was a ’good news story for the island’ that a respected company such as Newmarket was showing such keen interest in operating holidays to the island although he admitted of the adverts: ’At first sight it does look daft.’

He said: ’I know it looks a little bit odd to those are unfamiliar with the trade.

’Newmarket Travel have been one of our most successful recent tour operators coming to the Isle of Man.’

He said Manx National Heritage and the government’s transport services had worked well together with Newmarket.

’It is important to realise this is not the traditional coach party market. These are what we describe as special interest holidays. They are people who are coming to the Isle of Man for a specific reason to do a specific thing.’

He said that last year Newmarket Holidays brought more than 30 groups to the island, up to 40 people a time.

spend

’The company puts together an itinerary for them. The secondary spend from this type of group is very good for the island.’

Mr Southworth said the way it works is that the company has a ’whole schedule’ of provisional bookings a year to 18 months ahead.

’If they don’t manage to fill a particular holiday then the customer will get an email or a phone call to say that they will not be running on that particular date but on the next available date.

’The nature of those customers is that they are more than happy to do that because they are looking to go to a particular place to do a particular thing. But they are not as fussed about when they can get there.’

He said the demographic tended not to be families with children in school, ’they take multiple holidays a year and can pick and choose when they come’.

Mr Southworth said some people had visited the island early in March before the borders closed. He added: ’As the borders have closed the operators have been ticking off the schedules as each one has been cancelled.’

He said the bookings were still there but they were just being rolled forward.

’These are people that want to come to the island and look at the heritage and they will come at some point.

’We call them legacy bookings and the company knows perfectly well that the chances of running something in the first week in September, for example, are very low.

’It’s a known phenomenon in the travel industry, which is doing its best to provide people with what they want, and it’s not the case of anyone being conned or anything like that. It is all perfectly transparent and in fact isn’t it great for the island that a company still has faith in it and still trying to promote the island.

’What it is doing is basically drawing up a list of people who will get here as soon as they can.’