Dutch travel agencies are being inundated with calls from winter tourists after Austria tightened up its coronavirus rules.

From this week unvaccinated people have been banned from bars, restaurants and indoor venues after the Alpine nation introduced a 2G system, meaning negative coronavirus tests are no longer valid for entry.

And from December 6 vaccine passports will only be valid for 270 days, or nine months, rather than the current 360, leaving many Dutch tourists wondering whether their February school holiday trip can go ahead.

And from January 3 the country will only accept vaccine passes from people who have had two doses or recovered from an infection, affecting around 850,000 people in the Netherlands who had the single-shot Janssen vaccine. In June and July many younger people opted for Janssen so they could go away on summer holidays.

Austria is acting to try to save the winter sports industry, which accounts for around 6.5% of its GDP, amid a rise in infections. On Monday more than 8,000 positive tests were recorded, a record for the country with a population of 8.9 million.

Austria also has one of the lowest vaccination rates in Europe, with 63% of the entire population fully vaccinated, compared to 69% in the Netherlands.

Travel agency TUI said it had taken a large number of calls in recent days from people who have booked winter breaks in Austria. ‘We still can’t answer all their questions at the moment,’ a spokesman told NOS.

Both TUI and Sunweb said they had had few cancellations so far.