Demand for late holidays won’t save season, warns specialist
Sunvil managing director Noel Josephides has warned that a late surge in demand for holidays will not save the industry from an horrendous year’s trading.
Recent media reports of bumper discounts and a glut of holidays remaining for the peak period have led to an increase in bookings in the past few days.
But Josephides, who runs the Greece and Cyprus specialist, said most companies would still struggle to show healthy profits this summer and capacity needed to be taken out of the market in 2005.
“Definitely the media coverage has helped and our bookings have risen,” said Josephides.
“But April, May and June were catastrophic for the industry, we’ve had to discount July and then after August 20 there will be a slow period again. A good August won’t save anyone.
“We won’t go out of business but I get frustrated working hard to run a business where everything is trashed. Capacity needs to be cut or some companies will go bust.”
Josephides said tour operators also had to take a more responsible attitude. “Some of our biggest operators are charging a £10 ticket-on-departure fee for holidays which are two weeks away,” he said.
“It’s labelled as a late booking fee but it’s just a cheap and nasty way to get people to pay extra money. The industry is still behaving like barrow boys.”
Nick Wrightman, managing director of Turkey specialist Tapestry Holidays, agreed that the industry needed to reduce the number of holidays on sale.
“We are carrying more people, but prices are slightly down. Capacity has to come out of the market,” he said.
Both Thomson and Mytravel claimed bookings had improved and there were now a limited number of peak season holidays available.
Ginny McGrath
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