AS STAG and hen nights grow increasingly elaborate, people are looking further afield to cities such as Paris, Amsterdam and Barcelona to ensure a memorable sending-off party.
Though a city’s nightlife has to be pretty wild to attract the stag or hen weekend market, daytime activities also rate highly on a number of agendas. Sporting events, for example, are very popular with stag parties, especially in cities which are served by low-cost airlines.
Ticket wholesaler Liaisons Abroad offers football fixtures in Italy and Spain, with prices typically starting at around £65 for a top league game.
Mission Impossible also offers tickets for the Italian league, as well as Formula One racing at Imola and Monza. Prices start at around £75.
Not all operators are convinced the stag and hen market is a positive one though and agents may find it difficult to cater for. Dorset-based Wessex World Travel consultant Sally Pugh said:”It can be difficult to book a large single-sex party into some hotels. It is generally allowed at their discretion, often with a ‘good behaviour’ deposit. Larger hotels are usually a better bet than family-run places. We have sold a number of large stag parties to 18-30 type destinations through Pineapple Holidays.”
But such operators are thin on the ground.
Sovereign product group manager Anna Prentice said: “We try to include something for anyone and everyone, but we don’t tend to take single-sex bookings of more than four to six people. Hoteliers are increasingly worried about this market.”
Operators not wanting to book single-sex parties have noticed an emerging trend, where single-sex parties will book the same break through a number of travel agents.
But, according to Prentice, if a hotel checks its bookings in advance and notices a number of smaller groups, it will often check with the operator that it is not a stag or hen booking.
For Sovereign, if the booking does turn out to be a large single-sex party, it is likely to be cancelled. “Stag and hen weekends are growing markets – people have larger disposable incomes for this sort of thing now – but Sovereign wants to encourage clients who are likely to visit again, not groups which will antagonise our hoteliers.”
Bearing this in mind, selling stag and hen-weekends could increasingly be restricted to seat-only sales, with accommodation booked through hotels known to tolerate single-sex groups.