Holidaysplease targets recovery by end of year


Juliet Dennis


Holidaysplease believes it will have restored its pre-pandemic financial position by the end of the year, provided summer departures go ahead as planned. Speaking on a Travel Weekly


webcast, director Charles Duncombe credited the homeworking company’s proactive approach during Covid for its current healthy position. The company now expects to


return to “sustainable, steady growth” of 15% to 20% a year. “If those [2022] departures


happen over the next few months, by the end of this calendar year we will probably be back in the position we were in financially going into Covid,” he said. At the start of the pandemic, the


company told its homeworkers to call all customers to see if they wanted to amend their holiday, even if they weren’t due to depart imminently. Duncombe said the strategy


aimed to “control the uncontrollable”. “Instead of going into that hunker


down mentality, we tried to be as proactive as possible,” he said. “We basically spent the whole of


that April ringing up customers. “We got a positive result because a lot of customers then felt quite


Travel


Charles Duncombe


Instead of going


into that hunker down mentality, we were as proactive as possible


reassured and weren’t panicked.” The strategy resulted in a holiday


cancellation rate of around 10% to 15%, with the vast majority of clients keeping their bookings. At the start of the pandemic, the


company kept all staff working and did not make redundancies. The move paid off, said


Duncombe, adding: “It meant we had got a lot of our admin out of the way and we actually started selling again. “From April until August 2020,


SAS pilots’ strike triggers move for bankruptcy protection in US


Scandinavian carrier SAS has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US after a strike by its pilots added to its financial concerns. The move will allow the carrier to continue operating, although the industrial action has grounded about half of its flights. SAS said the dispute meant the airline had brought forward plans to restructure its finances.


8 7 JULY 2022 Weekly’s Lucy Huxley


we managed to get to within about 5% down on 2019 sales – right in the eye of the storm.” The company also ploughed


savings into the business, built up over the past decade, with the backing of its bank. This included investment in marketing throughout Covid. “I just thought, what I want at the


end of Covid is to come out of it like a cork out of a champagne bottle, with all my staff intact and all my goodwill intact, and to take advantage of that boom,” said Duncombe.


Watch the interview with Charles Duncombe at:


travelweekly.co.uk/media


Mastercard and Visa claims filed in class action


Claims against Mastercard and Visa for breaching competition law have been filed with the Competition Appeal Tribunal in a class action lawsuit on behalf of UK travel and hospitality companies. Law firm Harcus Parker,


which has brought the claims, argues Mastercard and Visa have unlawfully overcharged businesses for credit and debit card payments on corporate cards and cards used by overseas visitors. The claim for travel and


hospitality alone could exceed £1.5 billion in repayment of Multilateral Interchange Fees (MIFs), which make up most of the Merchant Service Charge, which banks charge on card payments. These and ‘inter-regional fees’


are levied on customers by the banks, but Visa and Mastercard set the rates as a condition of the banks’ participation in the card schemes. The banks then pay ‘scheme


fees’ to Visa and Mastercard. The European Commission


ruled such fees on consumer card transactions broke competition law back in 2007, and MIFs have been capped at 0.3% on consumer credit card transactions and 0.2% on consumer debit cards since 2015. But fees on corporate card transactions remain as high as 1.8%.


Hotelplan Heroes going ‘back to floor’ to help busy agencies


Hotelplan’s UK trade team are offering to go “back to the floor” to help out at 30 busy travel agencies this summer. A trio from the group have been dubbed the ‘Hotelplan Heroes’ and are offering to make tea, organise brochures,


provide lunch or greet customers. i Get Social, page 33


Portugal removes Covid entry


restrictions for all arrivals Portugal has dropped all Covid entry restrictions for both vaccinated and unvaccinated visitors. Fully jabbed arrivals no longer need to show proof of vaccination, while the testing mandate has also been removed for those not vaccinated. Face masks are still mandatory in certain places and social distancing continues to be advised.


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