A renewed sense of optimism suggests the travel industry has turned a corner and is on the path to recovery, according to Lowcost Travel Group chief executive Paul Evans.
He told the PerformanceIN Travel & Leisure conference last week that he had sensed an upbeat mood at the previous week’s ITB travel show in Berlin.
Evans said he was seeing “some first shoots of encouragement” in his travel agent business.
“I really felt for the first time in a couple of years an optimism after all the doom and gloom…I think we have bottomed out and we are starting to come up.
“I thought we were going to have a good January and then it was going to die, but February was good and March is holding up quite well.
“I’m getting a real sense of optimism. The [economic] figures coming out of the US are encouraging, the housing market is starting to stabilise, there is almost a sense of optimism around the economy.
“Spring is in the air. It’s amazing how a little sunshine encourages you to be more optimistic.”
One area of concern, however, was cruise which Evans said was not only suffering from the Costa Concordia disaster but from over-capacity in the Mediterranean and cruise lines going direct.