The crisis in Kosovo has led to a boom in bookings to Spain this summer as holidaymakers have been deterred from travelling to the Eastern Mediterranean.
But with the boom have come the age-old fears about overbooking from greedy hoteliers overselling their allocations.
Thomas Cook tour operations managing director Simon Vincent expressed his concerns about an overbooking crisis when he addressed Spanish hoteliers in Palma earlier this month.
“The potential for overbooking in the peak season is significant,” he said. ” Overbooking will destroy the confidence of the British holiday buying public in the Spanish product faster than anything else because they have seen it happen before.”
Virgin Sun general manager Ian Brooks revealed that not all hoteliers could be trusted to limit sales to the number of beds they can offer.
“Some hotels are more responsible than others,” he said. “The responsible ones send out stop-sales to warn operators they are full but others are a little less truthful and you do not find out they are booked up until the last minute.”
While many operators agree there is a danger of overbooking, the bad old days of aircraft landing on one island and being diverted to another because there are no beds are over.
Airtours Holidays deputy managing director Richard Carrick said: “There is the potential for overbooking because Spain has enjoyed an unusual level of demand over the last eight or 12 weeks because of the declining attractiveness of the eastern Mediterranean but now, with the end of the crisis, we are seeing a resurgence of interest for the Greek islands and Corfu.
“Also the hotel industry in Spain is far more mature and professional than in the 1970s. Most of the major tour operators have long-term contracts with hoteliers.”
Carrick recalled the ’70s when overbooking was at its worst.
“Hoteliers would overbook to make sure they were always full. If they had bookings from a British tour operator and from a German tour operator they might accept extra bookings from the Germans at the expense of the British because they paid more.”
Mundi Color managing director Jose Antonio Arroyabe believes the stakes are now too high to repeat the mistakes of the past.
“Spanish suppliers have learned from their mistakes. The war has deviated traffic massively to Spain but I think common sense will prevail and people won’t go crazy overbooking, accepting every offer and hoping it will sort itself out like they used to. Hoteliers know people have long memories and recall the holiday fiascos of the past.”
First Choice sales director John Wimbleton believes more watertight contracts are another block to overbooking.
“Overbooking is always a risk but, like any business, it’s about controlling and measuring those risks and anticipating them. We have exclusive guaranteed units and good relationships with large established hotel chains so that overbooking won’t happen.”
Magic Travel group brand manager Richard Hume concurs. “Our agreed contracts with hotels mean they must honour the beds they promise. If they think there is going to be an overbooking scenario, they will warn us well in advance.”
All agree that Spanish hoteliers will not run the risk of capitalising on the unnatural demand this summer.
They say that in some of the less experienced resorts, overbooking would have been a real issue, but Spain has spent too much time on cleaning up its act.
Arroyabe said: “Spain has restructured its image and won’t allow that to be affected by overbooking. I believe the Spanish tourism ministry will also be keeping an eye out for sharp practice.
“No-one out there wants a bad name again, there’s just too much to lose.”