New Year’s Day 2000 falls on a Saturday which is causing all kinds of problems for ski operators. Liz Bird reports
Next winter looks set to be a tough one for ski operators. Industry figures show the market down by around 10%-15% for 1999/2000 and the overall prospects do not look good.
The two main problems cited by operators are the millennium New Year period and a very late Easter, both traditionally strong selling periods.
Despite huge amounts of hype, with talk of high margins for operators and good commission for agents, selling the key New Year period has proved to be a real headache for ski operators.
First there was the delay in getting rates from the hoteliers which led many operators to postpone the launch of their main edition programmes. Crystal Holidays and First Choice Ski have only just launched their first editions.
Thomson programme manager Ian Simkins said: “We did not put the millennium holidays on sale until we had secured a definite contract from hoteliers. This led us to release the rates later than we would normally do – at the end of March as opposed to just before Christmas.”
He also believes there is a certain amount of inertia with many people still undecided about what they want to do for New Year. Another key problem for next season is New Year’s Day falling on a Saturday, the normal rotation day for ski charter operators. This has forced operators to offer 10-day holidays.
Crystal Holidays managing director Andy Perrin, speaking at the launch of his company’s ski industry report, said: “One of the biggest frustrations is that we have waited 1,000 years for the millennium and it falls on a Saturday.
This puts pay to our regular flying schedules and our neat charter flight rotations have been destroyed.”
First Choice Ski marketing director Adrian Harwood said the longer duration holidays over New Year would reduce overall volume for the 1999/2000 season by an estimated 6%.
Harwood said: “We are doing 14 rotations to Austria rather than our usual 15 and 15 rotations to France rather than the normal 16.”
He said the 10-night durations rather than the usual seven means tour operators are recovering some of that lost revenue, but not all of it.
The late Easter is also a big cause for concern. Next year it falls on April 21-24 compared to the first weekend in April this year. “This is about as late as it has ever been,” said Crystal’s Perrin.
Many of the lower altitude resorts look likely to have little snow for the usually strong selling holiday period.
“There are only a dozen resorts in Europe such as Val D’Isere and Tignes, where people will be confident there will be snow. Italy, Bulgaria, Andorra and Spain will be out of the market,” said First Choice’s Harwood.
The uncertainty of next season has led First Choice Ski to introduce fluid pricing for the first time to ensure it stays competitive. “Next season is going to be all about managing supply and demand. Fluid pricing will give us the flexibility we need,” said Harwood.
Crystal’s Perrin said its own figures for the 1998/99 season show bookings are up 23% to 515,000 for the tour operators’ market (see table) with the strong pound and the well documented good snow at the back end of the season contributing to the increase.
“This lays to rest the suggestion of the early 1990s that skiing is out of fashion.”
He predicts the ski market will break the 600,000 mark by the year 2003 but admits that next season is a bit of an unknown quantity.
Harwood is not very confident for next season. At best he believes the market will plateau, at worst it will be down again. AC Nielsen figures show the market fell by around 7%-8% last season after a fantastic year in 1997/98. This was borne out by First Choice’s own statistics and feedback from agents.
Thomson’s Simkins believes many people have not yet decided what they were doing for the millennium and urged agents to gear themselves up to push ski between August and October.
Inghams sales manager Laurence Hicks said his main concern for the millennium was delivering a quality product to clients paying the higher prices in resort. “Client demands over the millennium will be exceptionally high. There will be a huge backlash in January if hoteliers don’t get it right.”
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