NEWS SPECIAL REPORT
In the wake of a bumper ski season and buoyant peaks bookings across all sectors, leading trade figures are looking ahead, with Hotelplan’s Joe Ponte saying: ‘The challenge now is to build resilience, because [the future] is bound to be a bumpy ride’
per cent of our audience say they’ll forgo other things to ensure they have their summer holiday. Cruise is doing well for us because, as an all-inclusive proposition, you can plan ahead knowing exactly what you’re going to spend.” Nicki Goldsmith, Virgin Atlantic: “One area that is a little softer is the market to Orlando as it’s predominantly families. If you took a Disney holiday in 2019 the entry level would have been £9k-£10k, but now it’s £18k, so costs are increasing significantly.” Lee Haslett, Celestyal Cruises: “We’ll exceed our pre-Covid revenue and guest numbers, but we won’t exceed on profit because of our fuel hedging policy, cost of F&B and cost of staff. We’ve had three sailings so far this year and our pre-embarkation revenue is already up 30%. People are trading up, they want that all-inclusive product – you can really see it.” Sarah Lancashire, Gold Medal: “We’re getting lots of requests for all-inclusive propositions in Dubai. Dubai doesn’t really want to do it but we are seeing more product coming on line. We wouldn’t normally be seeing this trend. We’re also seeing people booking multiple trips.”
travelweekly.co.uk
. . . ON FUTURE CONSIDERATIONS Janet Parton, Cosmos: “A lot of talent left the industry in the pandemic, so we’re investing heavily in training. Agents seem a bit scared of selling touring, so we need to give it a big push. That said, our trade business is up 10% year on year. Our distribution has grown – we’re seeing more individual Abta numbers in our figures. But it’s a lot of order-taking and we’d love to see more agents proactively promoting the touring product.” Tempest-Mitchell: “We kept training going throughout the pandemic and continued it in January and February this year, when we’d normally pause it. I believe this is why we’ve had such a successful peaks. We also had less turnover than some because we secured a couple of NHS contracts, which only ended in March 2022, which meant we could retain staff.” Julie Franklin, Inghams: “People know Inghams, but we’re niche and agents find it harder to introduce our destinations. We find that homeworkers are really good at ski and Lapland as they see them as niche markets. But we have found
the quality of all conversations and meetings, and the relationships we have, have just got stronger as both sides are valuing the relationship and partnership. Nothing is one-way.” Ponte: “Everyone had a good peaks. The challenge now is to build resilience, because [the future] is bound to be a bumpy ride. We are going to have to make calls on whether we increase marketing, or maximise profit when stuff gets tricky.” Haslett: “This year has seen a good start and a good build, but even the biggest brands and businesses with strong business models have large debt, so we need a few good years. One of our biggest issues is air capacity and fares into key destinations. There’s going to be a pilot shortage this summer and then there’s the APD rise coming in 2024, which will have another impact.” Andy Freeth, Classic Collection: “To be a superstar against last January isn’t difficult as last January was terrible [due to Omicron]; you need to look at January and February combined. It’s the ‘what next?’ that worries me. There’s always something, but we’re a very resilient industry. I’m surprised there haven’t been more failures.”
. . . ON OPPORTUNITIES Adrian Keating, Play Airlines: “We want to challenge Icelandair to be the number-one airline from Iceland. For us, filling our planes at the moment isn’t a problem, but by selling through the trade we can do so at a higher yield.” Freeth: “Our three strategic pillars are B2B, long-haul and premium. Long-haul is now 20% of what we do, whereas two years ago it was nothing. The Maldives, Dubai and Barbados are now in our top-10 destinations every week, so that’s an opportunity.” Sinclair: “We’re going to be launching beach around Easter. We’ve had a big delay on it because of the pandemic but now we’re ready. We have some really good partners and loyal customers, so we’re ready to give it a go.” Ponte: “Sixty-six per cent of our staff (460) are now from the EU as a direct result of Brexit and not being able to employ Brits overseas. But it’s actually proved really interesting and appealing for our customers to have people from different places in resort,
rather than relying just on Brits.” i See photos from the Hotelplan/ T
ravel Weekly VIP ski trip, page 26 6 APRIL 2023 11
PICTURES: Shutterstock/nullplus, Georgios Tsichlis, Monkey Business Images, Jag_cz, Mathisa
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
