Barclays Travel Forum May 22 ■ Royal Geographical Society ■ London
Greece’s future, domestic growth and luxury potential were just a few of the topics raised by industry leaders ahead of the Barclays Travel Forum. By Lucy Siebert and Daniel Pearce
Why the future looks brighter for 2014
A
head of the annual Barclays Travel Forum, leaders from a variety of sectors were questioned
by Barclays’ head of travel Chris Lee for a series of videos about the state of the industry, the year ahead and sports tourism.
All agreed that 2012 had so far
proved to be extremely challenging for travel, with more of the same expected for 2013. The consensus was that things should start to brighten in 2014, when the economy should have started to pick up and ahead of the next general
election in 2015. They also all stressed that the annual holiday was the one luxury that British families were most unwilling to give up, and that once the economy started to improve, there would be significant pent up demand for travel.
EXCLUSIVE TTG
EasyJet’s Paul Simmons says the airline “didn’t run away from Egypt” and was now reaping the reward
The airline perspective Paul Simmons, director for the UK market at easyJet, said it was still all to play for in 2012, with a lot of hope and progress still to be made. “This isn’t a bad summer – the western Med, Spain and Portugal are going extremely well. Greece, with the exception of Athens, is doing extremely well while Egypt never went away. “Others ran away from Egypt, we
stayed - last year we exceeded our budget as we were the only ones still flying. That also helped us maintain a strong relationship with hoteliers. “With business travel, people
From left: TTG’s Lucy Siebert with White Hart Associates’ Chris Photi, Barclays’ Chris Lee and Flight Centre’s Adam Murray
The cruise perspective “The saying that all publicity is good publicity doesn’t ring true for cruise this year with the Costa Concordia and a number of other things,” said Seamus Conlon, managing director of
cruise.co.uk. He told TTGhe believed cruising is now cheaper than it has ever been, with 12-night voyages up for grabs for just £399 and more discounts coming available on the lates market.
08 24.05.2012
This is more to do with the economy that the impact of Concordia, he said. “For new to cruise it was an upgrade holiday. The economics have had bigger implications although Costa Concordia certainly damaged the new to cruise market.” He added that bookings for June and July suggest that customers are holding off booking their cruise during Euro 2012. “It doesn’t look like people want to sit on ships at that time,” he said.
While all of this makes it a challenging time for cruise operators, Conlon believes cruise distributors and agents are well- placed as lines look to them to “find the customers”. “I’m positive. Our business model, which is based around social media, will continue to grow and we are launching all over the world in the likes of Australia, New Zealand, South African, France and Germany,” he said.
aren’t travelling less but they are travelling more with us. It’s like with travel agents – fundamentally they are still there, and it’s the same with business travel. Video conferencing is not a substitute for it. “Our recent advertising shows that our current ambition is to offer best value and service in whatever market we’re in, and a price-led campaign doesn’t necessarily reflect that.”
The accountants’ perspective “It’s not a question of ‘if’ but rather of ‘when’”, said Graham Pickett, global head of aviation and travel for Deloitte, speaking to TTG about the Greek crisis.
While this will “mean a considerable pain in a short amount of time,” Pickett believes a return to the drachma would be a major boost for Greek tourism in the long run. “There
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60