Finally! Some positive news for frustrated British holidaymakers and the beleaguered UK travel industry.
Getting Portugal off the 14 day coronavirus quarantine blacklist is a huge boost, so start packing your bags for one of the UK's favourite destinations – prime hotspots such as the Algarve, Madeira, Lisbon and Porto await.
Obrigado, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Portuguese tourism industry and minister, which lobbied hard for this.
Unfortunately, as so often with this wretched pandemic, it's tempered with bad news as Croatia gets the Government's thumbs down.
Though at least there won’t be quite the crazy scramble to get home from the Balkans nation today as we saw when France was given Le Cold Shoulder last week; far fewer Brits are there – perhaps 15,000-20,000.
Inevitably, though, those who are trying to fly home today to beat the Saturday 4am deadline will have faced long online 'queues' for new air tickets and steeply rising prices up to nearly £300 one-way from a more typical £85. Supply and demand is not the holidaymaker's friend.
Many delighted Brits will now be booking the Algarve for a welcome September sunshine break and helping struggling British tour operators.
Though this is a break which should already have been feasible but for the Government's leaden-footed blanket bans, rather than the targeted regional approach favoured by the UK travel trade.
Not being able to go to the Algarve because of a virus spike in Lisbon was like being barred from visiting Minehead because of a rise in infections in London.
If we had a Government which genuinely supported the devastated UK travel industry and which had an ounce of creative thinking, we might have a better quarantine policy and some sensible regional travel permitted to low-Covid holiday areas.
Sadly, when it comes to backing an industry which employs millions and bring in billions, this Government seems to have all the nous of a single, lost flip-flop lying on an Algarve beach.
