In brief
news
■ Osborne told to follow Irish with air tax cut The Fair Tax on Flying alliance is calling on the chancellor to follow the Irish government’s plans to abolish the ¤3 tax on passengers flying out of the country. The Abta-led alliance of 30 travel organisations is pressuring Osborne in the run-up to an APD announcement in the March 23 budget.
■ Strikes to put Spanish holidays in balance Agents may have to tell customers “to put Spain on hold” due to uncertainty created by Spanish airport workers who have called 22 days of strikes over Easter and the peak summer period.
■ Emirates and Etihad boost Manchester flights Agents have welcomed an expansion of capacity from Manchester to the Middle East. Emirates is starting a third daily flight to Dubai from Manchester from May 1. Etihad is doubling its flights between Manchester and Abu Dhabi to 14 a week from August 1. One Manchester agent, Kristina Hulme, of Travel by Design, said BA’s long-haul exit from Manchester had left a gap.
■ Visitor levels up for Dubai after trade offers Dubai attracted 720,000 UK visitors in 2010 as it remained the top source market for the emirates. The increase on the previous year’s 715,000 visitors was helped by autumn trade offers, which brought a 9% increase in numbers year- on-year in October, November and December.
■ Event focus behind Barbados tourism push The Barbados Tourism Authority is hoping to use events to maintain rising visitor numbers and counter the effects of rising oil prices and APD. These include a “Football Legends” tournament in June, and a food festival in November.
Keep it green: There is still time to register for TTG’s Green Think Tank at the Responsible Business 2011 show in London on March 17. Come along to hear expert opinion on how to engage customers in greener tourism from speakers from Virgin, Arup and Travel Matters. Visit
responsiblebusinessevent.org then click on “exhibition”, followed by “register”.
04 11.03.2011 Rob Gill.
THE INDEPENDENT travel sector is set to see a wave of mergers and acquisitions over the next six months – and the owner of Global Travel Group is positioning itself as one of the key players. Stella Travel Services UK, which owns the Global Travel Group consortium and the operators Travel 2 and Travelbag, will look at getting involved in possible deals as companies try to en- sure their survival amid tough trading conditions and increased costs, including higher fuel prices. Speaking at Global’s conference in Leicester this
week, Botterill said: “Further consolidation is inevitable given the dynamics of the market. We will see consolidation for agents and operators. “The market is full of opportunities for an acquisition or merger that we could decide to do strategically.” He said there would be fewer independent
travel firms in the next few years, but the sector would become “more robust and viable” because
11.03.2011
Indies to merge as times get tough?
Botterill: mergers are inevitable
it was not so reliant on the mass market. “To be a true inde- pendent agent you need to specialise with unique sell- ing points and be able to engage with the customer much more than you had to five years ago,” he said. Andrew Burnham, head of travel at accountants MacIntyre Hudson,
said higher costs and the financial squeeze on consumers would create “more cash pressure” for travel firms and put mergers back on the agenda. “There could be a lot of consolidation among
mid-sized companies over the next three to six months as some owners look to get out,” he added. Former Hoseasons chief executive Richard
Carrick predicted consolidation in the bed bank sector, saying there are “probably too many” and “margins are thin”, as well as the possibility of independent retail consolidation, but through partnerships rather than full mergers.
■Report: Global Travel Group Conference, p12 Cuts threatening travel’s future
THE UK will soon be faced with a shortage of skilled travel professionals if the government’s education policies are not reconsidered, a travel and tourism teacher has warned. Gill Foster, the coordinator for travel and tourism at a school in south London, blames government funding cuts to applied learning courses and policies that deter vocational training for the situation. “The government is cutting funds for vocational subjects, so schools that offer applied learning won’t get additional funding,” Foster explained. “I am sure some schools won’t run these
courses anymore. I don’t think they will die out completely, because there is a need for them, but
there will be a period of adjustment and schools will look at cutting courses that are less popular.” She also said the government was encouraging students to take apprenticeships, but removing the training required for those apprenticeships by cutting vocational funding. “Our travel and tourism courses cover basic
training, such as customer-service skills and making sure students know where destinations are,” she said. “If young people didn’t have these skills, they wouldn’t be accepted onto appren- ticeships because companies would not want to spend time training them.”
■‘A seriously wrong strategy’: Letters, p26
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