TWO Weymouth seafront hotels are to close temporarily after the latest Covid restrictions wrecked plans for ‘turkey and tinsel’ breaks.

Daish’s Holidays – whose 12 hotels include the Hotel Prince Regent and the Russell Hotel in Weymouth – said it had made the “heartbreaking” decision to close until February 1.

Daish's also has a fleet of 25 coaches.

The Bournemouth-based company’s decision came after the government banned most travel from areas under Tier 3 or the new Tier 4 of coronavirus restrictions.

Mixing of three households indoors, which was to have been allowed for five days, is now only permitted on Christmas Day, everyone has been told to stay local for their celebrations.

Paul Harper, director of sales and marketing at Daish’s Holidays, said: “Following the most recent government announcement made on Saturday December 19, we have made the difficult and heartbreaking decision to close all of our hotels over the Christmas and New Year period through to February 1, 2021.

“The safety of our guests and staff remains our number one priority, and due to the high number of our guests who live in Tier 3 or 4 areas, along with the current advice for those in Tier 1 and 2 areas to ‘stay local’, we have sadly decided that our hotels will have to temporarily close,” he added.

“We are so grateful for the support from our guests throughout what has been a tremendously challenging year for everyone.

“We will use this time to prepare for our reopening and look forward to welcoming back our guests when it is possible to do so.”

One Daish’s Holidays hotel, the Bournemouth Sands Hotel in West Cliff Gardens, posted on Facebook: “We know after what has been an incredibly difficult year, many of our customers were greatly looking forward to a festive break, and this is a decision that has not been taken lightly.

“It is also extremely disappointing for us at Daish’s, given all the hard work that our teams have put into making our holidays and coach travel Covid-secure. We were also looking forward to spreading some much-needed festive cheer at the end of a very challenging year.”

It added: “We will be contacting customers in departure date order and kindly thank you in advance for your patience while we work through all our bookings.

“We’ll be working hard over the coming weeks and months as we look forward to welcoming guests back as soon as we are able.”

Daish’s Holidays – whose 12 hotels also include the Hotel Prince Regent and the Russell Hotel in Weymouth – made 177 redundancies at the start of the Covid crisis in March.

But it recovered later in the year to hire 83 people, many of them former staff returning to the company.

It also bought out Lancashire-based operator Robinsons Holidays, adding two hotels and 13 coaches to its portfolio.