JERSEY Tourism has blamed competition from cheaper destinations for a 6.4% slump in visitors to the Channel Island last year.
UK tourists who stayed on the island for one night or more numbered 432,000 in 1998.
Jersey Tourism marketing director David de Carteret said the destination had suffered from the amount of price-led competition in the UK market last year.
The competitive situation was prompted by poor bookings across the board in June, caused by the World Cup and bad weather. These factors also hit the Jersey market, according to Carteret.
“We don’t sell ourselves as a cheap destination, we sell ourselves as a quality destination,” he said. “We have to get the message across that Jersey is worth paying a premium for. But I think with last year’s promotional campaign we didn’t achieve that, because of the amount of price-led competition around.”
In 1998, Jersey Tourism ran a UK campaign featuring a Jersey cow for the third year running. But this year its ú3.5m campaign emphasises aspects of Jersey that make it different from other destinations.
Holidayprices in Jersey have risen by around 5% this year, with the average price of a week-long holiday currently around ú250 per person.
But de Carteret anticipates that operators will make a certain amount of tactical offers in order to boost sales of their product between Easter and the summer.
He added that bookings were currently running at around the same level as last year’s.