p17 BTF June26 23/6/09 15:04 Page 17
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BOOKINGS. 2010 PRICES.
Late-sales trend
Pound’s rise ‘could peg prices’
‘is here to stay’
OPERATORS may be able access to net rates and take
THIS YEAR’S trend of customers booking much to have no price rises in control of the pricing,” he said.
versus
closer to departure is likely to become a perma- 2010 brochures if the pound Liz Savage said Monarch
nent fixture of the market, the forum was told. continues to strengthen would be taking a conservative
Kane Pirie, managing director of Travel against the euro. approach to next year as a re-
Republic, said both average booking-to- Tui Travel is likely to covery was more likely in 2011.
departure times and booking values were down. maintain the same capacity The carrier would make few
“People keep booking later and that will in summer 2010 as for this changes to its schedules but
continue; that’s how the consumer is increasingly year after cutting 15% for operate two fewer aircraft,
preferring to book their holidays,” he said. summer 2009. moving to 30 from 32, she said.
Lowcost Travel Group chief executive Paul The operator’s Dermot Blastland said prices “2010 will be a much more conservative year
Evans added: “This year there’s an incredibly late- could also remain unchanged: “The critical factor than this year even though consumer sentiment
booking window. August is starting to move but is foreign exchange. We’ve only purchased what should be more positive,” added Savage. “I’m
we have very little from September onwards.” we expect to sell by Christmas. more optimistic things will be better by 2011.”
Another trend reported was customers cutting “The pound has been hammered and the ad- Blastland added that non-euro destinations
down on the number of breaks but preserving vice we received was not to go near currency for and all-inclusives were benefiting because they
their main summer holidays. six months. We’re looking at the possibility of no were immune from the pound’s weakness.
“More affluent customers have cut back on price increase in January, which would be great.” “All-inclusive has gone up. Egypt is still boom-
their long-haul Christmas break,” said Travel Travel Counsellors’ Steve Byrne expected the ing and other non-euro destinations like Turkey
Counsellors’ Steve Byrne. 2010 market to be an improvement on this year are doing well for summer. The euro needs to
One silver lining during the economic crisis was but not a return to the levels of 2007. weaken to help Spain,” he said, adding that
the strength of the student backpacker market, “Our biggest challenge is to shift more Spanish hoteliers should improve their product
according to Flight Centre’s Chris Galanty. business to dynamic packaging where we can get to match what was on offer in Sharm el Sheikh.
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