THE travel trade is preparing itself for a bumper sales weekend with most of the country’s schools due to break up in the next two weeks – but fears a price war if the market does not pick up significantly.
Operators say there is an increased threat of heavy discounting due to the large amount of stock still left to sell this summer as the trend for families to book later continues. This is despite a bookings boost after the end of the World Cup.
Kinver Travel owner Sue Foxall said families had been discouraged from booking too early by the Government’s clampdown on term-time holidays and blamed this for her agency’s summer family sales being 10% down.
While she hopes for good weekend sales, Foxall admitted: “Many families who haven’t taken their children away during term time can’t afford to go away during the school holidays.”
Club Med head of sales UK and Scandinavia Steve O’Loughlin said the operator’s sales were around 20% up last week although it has offered discounts of up to £150.
Teletextholidays.co.uk commercial director online Matt Cheevers agreed family bookings should start rolling in now. “There are some good deals and operators are now becoming more aggressive on price.”
He said the site’s traffic has increased by 27% following England’s World Cup knock-out.
Online intelligence service Hitwise reported similar figures – in the last month Lastminute.com’s traffic has grown by 23%, Expedia UK’s by 27%, TripAdvisor by 20%, LateRooms UK by 33% and First Choice by 25%.
Olympic Holidays commercial director Photis Lambrianides said the operator has around 35% of summer 2006 capacity still to shift and hoped a good weekend would boost this week’s sales, up 15% so far.
However, he warned: “There are some operators with much bigger capacity which are discussing serious discounts if the market does not pick up in a big way.”