Was Champions League final a glimpse of easier holidays abroad this summer?

However, the presence of fans on this large (although much-reduced from normal) scale simultaneously seemed incongruous with the likes of particularly tight restrictions still in place for Glasgow, where there are bans on going in and out of the local authority area, and appeared to offer hope on the international travel front.

Of course, smaller but still significant numbers of fans of Manchester United and Villarreal had been allowed into the Gdansk Stadium in Poland for the Europa League final last week. Polish authorities waived the quarantine requirement for visitors from the UK holding a match ticket.

However, it was the Porto final which brought to mind again the big question of what this summer will hold for international travel.

Portugal is currently on the UK’s green list, making the trip to Porto relatively straightforward for the Manchester City and Chelsea fans, with no quarantine required on return, although compulsory testing had to be taken into account. In contrast, Poland is on the UK’s amber list, with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office advising “against all but essential travel to the whole of Poland based on the current assessment of Covid-19 risks”.

That said, this did not mean the arrival of Chelsea and Manchester City football fans drinking in Porto in large numbers was uncontroversial, with reports of locals being deeply concerned about a relaxation of Covid-related rules to accommodate the visitors.

From a Scottish perspective, the scenes from Porto seemed at the weekend particularly odd given the aforementioned restrictions in Glasgow, which will host games in the delayed Euro 2020 tournament this month. There was some relief for Glasgow yesterday, however, with news of a move to lighter level-two restrictions from Saturday, and an ending of the travel ban.

The presence of the football fans on the streets of Porto and in the stadium highlighted the fast-changing nature of coronavirus-related restrictions. There was in the UK a blanket ban on all non-essential travel overseas until May 17 but less than two weeks later thousands of Manchester City and Chelsea fans enjoyed a relatively normal European cup final trip.

However, the scenes also underlined starkly contrasting rules in different places, both between and within countries. So did the very different requirements for English fans attending the Champions League and Europa League finals.

We are once again only weeks away from what would normally be the peak summer holiday season, and the degree of uncertainty facing not only UK consumers but also airlines, big tour operators, travel agents and hotel companies remains huge. In many ways, it seems greater than at this point last year, by which time the pandemic had been raging for a few months.

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Key figures in the travel sector in Scotland have been vociferous in demanding a four-nations approach to international journeys in a UK context.

So far, this is what has happened this time round, although First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has understandably reserved the right to diverge from this if the Scottish Government views decisions taken by the Johnson administration as unwise from a public-health perspective.

The days of hassle-free travel are clearly gone for now. For example, while Portugal is on the green list, travellers from the UK still have to take PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests, and bear the expense of these.

And the vast bulk of mainstream European holiday destinations, including Spain, Greece and Italy, currently remain on the amber list. A review of the lists is expected to be announced this week and this should give further significant clues about what the summer might hold, although many uncertainties will no doubt remain and we saw last year how quickly countries can move on and off the quarantine-exempt list.

The UK Government has been far more categoric about not making non-essential journeys to amber-list countries than many had expected.

Some had thought, in terms of leisure travel, that this might come down to a personal decision on whether or not they were willing to self-isolate on return. However, it has been made plain that this is not the case.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson declared last month: “I think it’s very important for people to grasp what an amber-list country is. It is not somewhere where you should be going on holiday – let me be very clear about that.

“And if people do go to an amber-list country, they absolutely have to for some pressing family or urgent business reason, then please bear in mind that you will have to self-isolate, you’ll have to take tests and do your passenger locator form and all the rest of it.”

Johan Lundgren, chief executive of airline easyJet, has highlighted his belief that the attitude towards travel to amber-list countries has been “very confusing”.

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He declared the whole point of the traffic-light system was to allow travel to restart again safely, and that it was “absolutely legal to travel to amber-list countries”.

Mr Lundgren added: “There was no indication they [passengers] shouldn’t travel to these countries, because that’s what the restriction was supposed to do – it was there to make sure you could do this in a safe way.

“We have a huge amount of people that are contacting us to say, ‘Look, can I go? Can’t I go?’. So it’s been very confusing, and the Government is almost dismantling the system that it set up themselves.”

His frustration is easy to understand.

We must also bear in mind that – in spite of whatever picture the UK Government might want to portray – just because a destination is on its green list does not mean that this country or territory will be welcoming people from Britain with open arms in terms of its policies to tackle coronavirus.

There has been some lamentable messaging from the UK Government on the international travel front, smacking of British exceptionalism.

Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps said last month: “Our success in combating Covid here…is not yet replicated in many places abroad. We in this country have managed to construct a fortress against Covid but the disease is still prevalent in other parts of the world.”

This type of seeming one-upmanship will do no one any good, and will certainly not help foster relationships which might smooth the path to easier safe international travel.

And it should be noted that, while the likes of Brexiters have made much of a slower start to the vaccination programme in European Union countries, things are now proceeding very well in EU nations.

This will hopefully be good news not only for people throughout Europe wishing to go abroad on holiday but also for an overseas travel sector which employs huge numbers of people in the UK, makes a major economic contribution and has been to a large degree in mothballs for more than a year.

And we should not forget the vast array of businesses dependent on a strong international travel sector, across industries from aerospace engineering to ground-handling and catering services.

Coming weeks will reveal the speed and success, or otherwise, of the UK’s plans for a restart of international travel.

At this juncture, it remains difficult to see whether or not overseas holidays will become far more straightforward as the summer progresses.

There are many complex issues to be unpicked. However, some of the keys to solving these problems are relatively simple.

The Government must be clear about its policies, giving as much advance notice as possible of impending changes, crucially including additions to, or removals from, the green list.

A bounce-back for international travel from the UK this summer will, of course, depend on meaningful additions to the green list, not in terms of a focus on Commonwealth countries (as has seemed the norm post-Brexit) but through a recognition of the importance of our European neighbours. It will also, of course, depend on the attitude that European and other countries take towards British tourists.

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Of course, airlines, holiday operators and hotels have a huge part to play in terms of offering flexibility to consumers and making it easy to obtain refunds particularly where circumstances change and where there are unforeseen events. Providing proper reassurance will hopefully boost bookings for them too. Insurers must cover risk given that is what people are paying them for – they should not be charging normal rates for travel policies with extraordinary exclusions.

There have been suggestions that certificates showing people have had two doses of vaccine could replace requirements for PCR tests in some situations and this looks eminently sensible, not least from a cost perspective when it comes to leisure travel but also for consumer confidence. People who have travelled to countries in Africa and South America will be familiar with requirements for yellow fever vaccination certificates.

Dispensation for people who have been vaccinated against coronavirus might also encourage take-up of the vaccine. And high take-up seems absolutely crucial at this stage.

Where possible, a joined-up approach, certainly throughout Europe, would help reduce the confusion around travel. The UK should work closely with our EU neighbours on this front.

Of course, we must remember that public-health considerations remain a priority in terms of the reopening of international travel.

However, rapid vaccine rollout not just in the UK but elsewhere must surely brighten the outlook for international travel. What will be required to support a recovery in overseas travel is policies from government and companies which make it as simple and cost-effective as possible for consumers to go abroad, with financial peace of mind, without undoing gains wrung out at considerable cost from severe restrictions implemented to save huge numbers of lives.

Hopefully, for households which have endured enormous challenges amid the pandemic and for the international travel sector and all the other businesses dependent on it, Saturday’s Champions League final was a harbinger of a return before too much longer to relatively hassle-free opportunities to go overseas again.