Travel firms are ‘own worst enemies on discounting’, says Hotelplan marketing director

Travel companies are their “own worst enemies” when they use discounting tactics, Hotelplan marketing director Dean Harvey has claimed.

 

Harvey said the industry had worked hard in recent years to encourage customers to book as early as possible, promising better deals, but he suggested these efforts were now lapsing at times.

 

“We’re our own worst enemies, because we’re discounting again,” he said, adding: “It’s a fool’s game.”

 

Harvey was speaking on a panel during Abta’s annual Travel Trends conference in London.

 

Brittany Ferries sales and marketing director Paul Acheson, another panellist, agreed there had been a move towards last-minute bookings.

 

“We’re seeing a very late-late trend for travel,” he said, noting that around 23% of Brittany Ferries travellers are booking within two weeks of travel.

 

Referring to sales chiefs’ monitoring of monthly targets, he said: “It’s not good for our health that people are booking so late.”

 

He added: “We’re trying to inspire people to book early with the reasons to travel rather than the discount.”

 

The Travel Corporation (TTC) chief marketing officer Lottie Norman said the Black Friday period had become the company’s top-selling time of the year, with ’Travel Tuesday’ – the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving – also driving demand.

 

“People are catching onto it [Travel Tuesday],” she said. “Last year we had a really strong Travel Tuesday.”

 

Harvey and Acheson both said generative AI platforms were denting the number of visitors to travel companies’ websites.

 

Harvey said: “There isn’t a brand in this room that will not have seen its website traffic drop as a result of Google’s AI engine.”

 

Travellers are now turning to ChatGPT at the start of the holiday-planning process, he said, but also during the trip itself.

“It’s [being used] right through the process,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve started to see the true impact just yet.”

 

Acheson said: “Web traffic is down [for Brittany Ferries]. I think it’s 5% down in the last few months.”

 

He likened the introduction of ChatGPT to the creation of the internet because of its impact on consumer habits.
 
“With ChatGPT, people are becoming even better experts,” he said. “As a business, we’ve got to step up to make sure we address that.”

 

Norman said the increasing use of ChatGPT could lead to more people visiting the same destinations and attractions, which could in turn drive more people towards travel professionals in search of new places.

 

“People are going to get to the stage where they need human validation,” she said.