Earlier this year we had Tim Williamson at TUI saying customers are 'fixated' on avoiding euro holiday destinations, but now Steve Endacott, chief executive of On Holiday Group is saying that these destinations, particularly Spain and the Balearics, could see an upturn in the late bookings market because hoteliers and airlines will cut prices to overcome low occupancy levels.
In a column in Travolution, Endacott says: "The key battle ground this year will be fought on who can bring distressed hotel stock to the market quickest. It will be an interesting battle between the major bed banks with traditional operators not even considered contenders."
Do you think this is reflected in your bookings? What are you expecting to see in the lates market?
Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
With the cost of certain no frills airline tickets over the school holidays already, traditional tour operators could be on a winner. Question is will they hold there nerve or will we see silly pricing?
My Tenerife website (using both bedbanks and tour ops) has been getting a lot more searches for "cheap" than at the start of the year but conversions are still lower than last year.
When I look at this data on holiday home rentals though I note that Spain is top in both 2008 and 2009 so maybe there isn't really such a big issue in this market?
I think a lot of it will be destination specific - to illustrate, some resorts / hotels that are more international will be OK as they will still have other customers from other Euro countries - e.g. Germany, other resorts like, urm Magaluf that are very reliant on UK visitors will either be having to cut prices, suffer lower occupany or find new markets.