More than 1.5 million people went on a holiday dynamically packaged by a travel agent in 2006 – doubling the value of the market to £54 million, according to Thomas Cook.
Thomas Cook head of holidays and commercial director Ian Derbyshire added the market would “continue to grow over the next few years”.
He said: “The number of people that went on a dynamically packaged holiday bought from a travel agent grew dramatically. What that did was bring extra capacity to the market.”
He conceded package holiday capacity had been cut by 5% for next summer, but dismissed claims the rise in dynamically packaged breaks would signal the end of the traditional package holiday.
“The independent sector will continue to grow but 16 million package holidays will be sold next year,” he said.
Derbyshire did admit, however, that summer 2006’s package holiday sales were 8% down on last year and 2007 summer sales so far were 17% down on the same period last year.
Winter breaks are 13% down on last year. However, within that Thomas Cook claimed summer sun breaks are thriving with record numbers heading for the sun this Christmas.
The Canaries, Egypt, Morocco and Cuba are the most popular destinations.
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