THE THOMAS Cook Group has been outselling market leader Thomson while Airtours has been edged into fourth place during the post-Christmas booking period.
Last week Sunworld and Flying Colours took the most bookings (see table, left).
But overall, weekend trading was disappointing, with the market down 17% on Saturday, compared with the same time last year. Post-Christmas bookings are down around 16%, compared with 20% down last week.
Thomson and Airtours have benefitted from aggressive campaigns through in-house retailers, but sales elsewhere have been poor as other agencies have not been able to match the deals.
Post-Christmas, 69.6% of Lunn Poly’s business was for Thomson, but only 4.7% was for Airtours. Some 63.3% of Going Places’ business was for Airtours but only 1.7% for Thomson.
One industry source said: “Thomas Cook is the only operator to have picked up bookings from lots of agencies.”
The overall market share from December 27 to January 7 for operators and agents are as follows:Thomson 26.8%; Thomas Cook Group 25.4%; First Choice Group 21.1%; Airtours 20.4%; Lunn Poly 22%; Going Places 20%; and Thomas Cook 14%.
TABLE: Holiday bookings by operator, January 5-7