News

THE trade has drawn up action plans in a determined bid to beat the bookings slump as war in the Gulf rages on.
The ongoing conflict has sparked an increase in holiday cancellations and price slashing, widespread reductions in airline capacity, staff cutbacks and reduced travel agency opening hours in a market trading 30% down week on week.
Fears are also rising of a prolonged war, with new figures from the World Travel and Tourism Council suggesting this would slash the UK's tourism income by $5 billion this year.
Despite this, the trade continues to put a brave face on the situation and is digging in for the long term.
Tour operators are already putting together post-conflict campaigns, while agents are using the quiet time to increase training and sales of holiday extras. Hoteliers are adapting cancellation policies to stimulate demand and pushing leisure sales.
MyTravel, where a staff consultation period to shed 700 posts ends in the next week, said the trade had been preparing for the situation for months.
UK managing director distribution and charter tour operations Steve Endacott said: "There are no crisis meetings because everything has been planned. We've had plenty of warning about this conflict and the impact is as we expected."
But operators admit they are seriously worried about sales for the next three months, with May and June always traditionally hard to shift, and even fear a price war if too much capacity is left in the market.
Cosmos commercial director Stuart Jackson warned: "I'm most worried about May and June because it gets to a stage where you have to carry on with a certain volume."
On-line retailers have already seen distressed stock for April, May and June dumped on the web in a last-ditch attempt by operators to shift holidays. Prices are already hitting lows of £79 for seven nights in Tenerife and £1 a night for accommodation-only product.
ABTA has told consumers to expect "bargains in the short term" but has warned the deals may dry up when the war ends.
Meanwhile, British Airways has brought forward plans to cut 3,000 jobs from next March to this autumn while 87 Air Miles call-centre staff in Crawley have come under renewed threat of redundancy.