DISCOUNTS on summer 2000 holidays were expected to rise to 25% over the weekend as the market improved but continued to show a heavy year-on-year decline.
As Travel Weekly went to press, multiples were on the verge of hiking the headline offer to stimulate bookings even further as the market showed a 20%-25% year-on-year fall.
Thomas Cook retail managing director Andrew Windsor said:”A further increase would not be surprising.”
Industry observers said only the packaging, not the real price of holidays, would change.
Going Places, which ditched its ‘mega-sale’ message in favour of a specified 20% headline discount, was down around 25% post Christmas with Lunn Poly down 12%, Thomas Cook down 14% and Co-op Travelcare down 7%.
All four major operators were showing year-on-year decreases with JMCdown 35%, Airtours 30%, Thomson 30%, and First Choice 27%. Unijet and Cosmos were both up 10%.
n Lunn Poly forces Going Places to drop advert See back page