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Riches quits job at Youtravel after just nine months


Lee Hayhurst lee.hayhurst@travelweekly.co.uk


Youtravel will not replace chief sales officer Paul Riches, saying its focus has shifted from pure sales to differentiated product and growing profitability with existing trade partners.


Riches, formerly Lowcost Beds


global sales director, announced his departure from the supplier last week after just nine months. “I have been discussing the best direction for the business for some


time and it is in the best interests for me to step down,” he said. Roula Jouny, chief executive


of parent Meeting Point, part of the German group FTI Touristik, said Youtravel’s approach was increasingly to offer directly contracted and exclusive properties such as FTI’s Mediterranean leisure hotel brand Labranda. “We will grow by focusing on


providing Youtravel with ‘castle’ properties so we don’t work on thin margins or no margins,” she said. “We don’t want to get into a price war. Our UK market is going


Paul Riches: ‘In the best interests for me to step down’


to be driven more by product, technology and service, so it’s not really 100% a sales job anymore.” Matthew Carpenter, head of XML


and account management, who also joined from Lowcost Travel Group, will become the key UK trade contact. Jouny praised Riches for ensuring Youtravel had in place the infrastructure that proved invaluable after last month’s collapse of rival Lowcost Beds. Youtravel suffered a “small


impact” because Lowcost bought


its beds, but Jouny said it was able to provide immediate assistance to customers through ground- handler Meeting Point. Jouny fears the UK will continue


to suffer similar collapses due to the domination of low-cost carriers, which means agents compete for margin only on hotel rooms. She said Youtravel’s booking


volumes were up 38% this year and it was poised to enter other European source markets as new technology is introduced.


5 Bookings up despite Brexit gloom


Ian Taylor ian.taylor@travelweekly.co.uk


Holidaymakers appear unfazed by post-referendum gloom, confounding economists’ forecasts with outbound bookings up year on year since the vote on June 23.


Industry analyst GfK reported summer 2016 bookings in July up 1% on last year, and season-to- date bookings up 5%. But it’s not just last-minute bookings that were up, as July saw a 14% year-on-year rise in bookings for this winter.


Summer 2017 bookings were


also up 10% on a year ago, although the numbers are small. The rise in bookings came alongside surges in inbound visitor numbers and domestic trips, which have been widely attributed to the fall in the pound. The Tourism Alliance reported


an 11% increase in UK domestic trips in July and an 18% rise in international visitors. Yet outbound travellers seem


undeterred up to now, despite reports of exchange rates as low as €1 to £1 at airport foreign exchange bureaux.


6 travelweekly.co.uk 25 August 2016


“We’ll see in the autumn whether the exchange rate has more of an impact”


GfK data shows family bookings


up 14% on July 2015 last month, with mainland Spain, the Canary Islands, Balearic Islands, Cyprus and Rhodes enjoying the biggest growth. Office for National Statistics


figures confirmed the pre-vote trend, with holiday departures for the six months to June up 5% on last year and departures over the


past 12 months up 7%. The booking and departure


figures were in sharp contrast to a World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) forecast that UK holiday departures could drop 3% by the end of the year as a result of Brexit and a weaker pound. WTTC president and chief


executive David Scowsill said: “These are top-line projections. This summer, people probably made their commitment to travel. We’ll see in the autumn whether the exchange rate has


more of an impact.” › WTTC forecasts, page 10


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