Offering value for money will be key to success in 2024 as the economy continues to threaten the sector’s recovery, according to three travel chiefs.
Speaking at Travel Weekly’s Future of Travel Conference 2023, Jet2 chief executive Steve Heapy, easyJet holidays chief executive Garry Wilson and Tui UK & Ireland managing director Andrew Flintham agreed that the cost-of-living crisis remains a concern despite the Bank of England announcing it would not raise interest rates further on September 21.
Flintham said: “We haven’t really seen the cost-of-living crisis hit in the way we feared it would. The broad macro piece [to ongoing demand] is always the economy and how much people have in their pockets. Thankfully research shows travel is always something at the top of people’s list of priorities.”
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He added the company expects customers to shorten the duration of their trips to cut costs, rather than downgrade elements of their booking.
Heapy said that despite robust sales throughout 2023 and confidence for next year, he believes there is a “long way to go” until the sector has fully recovered from the Covid pandemic with “inflation still stubbornly high”.
He also cited a labour shortage caused by Brexit, curbs imposed by the government to limit the sector’s impact on the environment and increasingly arduous regulation as challenges.
The trio urged business owners to focus on offering value for money for their customers in 2024 to combat the effects of rising prices.
“Value for money is really important,” said Wilson, adding: “There’s been a big jump in the prices customers are paying for their holidays and they are right to question what value they’re getting.
“People are happy to pay more through a travel agent, but they need to make sure they’re getting the unique information that allows them to make better decisions. Frankly, you could argue customers haven’t been getting the value they deserve over the past few years because of external factors.”
Heapy added: “Value for money is going to be the most important thing [to performance in 2024].”