Tour operators and agents are preparing for a third national lockdown which they feel is inevitable following the relaxation of social distancing rules over Christmas.
Speaking on a Travel Weekly webcast, If Only sales director Gordon McCreadie said he was expecting “another bump in the road” in the New Year and was preparing a contingency plan if the peak selling period was delayed.
“If the demand is there, then we’ll roll out the big guns. If demand doesn’t come, then we’ll maybe hold our powder dry and move peaks to April, May and June,” he said.
“I definitely think next year overall will be a good year. Now whether it starts in January, or whether the relaxing of restrictions around Christmas might lead to another lockdown remains to be seen.
“I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet. I think there will be another bump in the road that we all need to get over. We have everything ready and if the demand’s there, we’ll roll out our bigger campaigns, and if it’s not, we’ll hang on and wait until it is.”
Tony Mann, managing director of Idle Travel, agreed there was likely to be another lockdown in January after people mix more over Christmas, but said it could be a good thing.
“If we have Lockdown 3, and I think that’s probably going to happen, I think it might be a good thing for travel, because if we use a social media etc, people are really fed up and want something to look forward to,” he added.
Mann said he was planning to invest more in marketing this January than previously, adding: “We’ve been going 36/37 years now and the last eight years, we’ve grown every year – and our Januaries every year, for the past eight years, have been the best every year.
“I don’t expect it to be the best this time. But I think we’ll have a decent January. Our campaign is ‘Look forward to 2021 travel’. That’s our focus. So I actually think once it starts, it’ll be crazy busy.
“I think, once people start travelling, for those travel agents that can get through this and survive, next year’s bookings are looking brilliant, so I think we’ll have a really, really busy year.”
Mann said he had noticed a change in consumer habits.
“There’s been a change in how people have booked holidays,” he said. “We’ve noticed that of the people that have booked this year, we’ve had a lot of new people come to us from places outside our area, which is quite amazing. We’ve not done bookings in the numbers that we should have, but there’s definitely positive things to take from this year.”
McCreadie said he had also noticed new trends emerging.
“There has certainly been a contraction in the travel windows. We used to have quite a long book-to-travel period; customers used to book more than a year in advance and have something to look forward to. But for certain destinations – the Caribbean and Dubai being the primary two; customers are quite happy to book now for travel next week. It’s that short a window,” he said.
He also said he had noticed an uptick in wedding bookings.
“A lot of them are focused on 2022,” he said. “Obviously, customers who wanted to get married this year, and it’s not happened, are thinking right, it’s not ideal but we’ll give ourselves a year to re-save up and we’ll look at 2022 in the hope that vaccines are in place and things have improved.”
Mann added: “We’re doing a quote at the moment for £ 21,000 for a booking. It’s quite a nice mix. I’m on a couple of focus groups with agents, and they’re all doing some nice quotes and getting some nice bookings in. So there’s definitely some demand there. And that will just continue to grow. I’ve no doubt about that.”