The outbound market saw its best year-on-year week of 2019 to date, with sales for this summer up 12% by Saturday on the comparable week in 2018.
The surge followed five consecutive weeks of 8%-10% declines in summer bookings year on year. But the increase came in comparison with the week in February 2018 when ‘the Beast from the East’ hit Britain and heavy snow left bookings down 8% year on year.
However, GfK senior client insight director David Hope hailed it as “a sign of positivity”.
“Bookings were better than expected,” he said.
“[Comparison with] the ‘Beast from the East’ made last week very strong, but bookings would still have been 3% to 4% up.”
The week left season-to-date bookings for summer 2019 up 2% year on year and the average selling price up a little under 2%.
Winter 2018-19 bookings in the week to March 2 were up 15% on the comparable week, which in turn was 9% down on the comparison week in 2017.
That left season-to-date bookings for the current winter up 4% and the average selling price about level with last year.
Hope said: “Winter bookings seem to be holding up better than summer.”
He reported EU destinations performing “a lot better than previously” in the most-recent week, noting “prices to EU destinations have been cut”. GfK reported a £20 reduction per person in the average selling price to the Balearics on last year.
All-inclusive holidays continue to outperform the market, with season-to-date sales for this summer up 8%. Hope said the demand for all-inclusive “suggests people are looking for value”.
