England expects… but then books a holiday

Travel trade watching Wednesday’s big game should take heart from the news that should England crash out of the World Cup, the industry will gain an extra £10.4 million as gutted fans rush to book a holiday.

The Co-operative Travel says that all the indicators of past football tournaments show that when the things go wrong for the England squad, its fans react by treating themselves to a break.

When England went out to Portugal on penalties in the 2006 World Cup, the Co-operative Travel says holiday bookings reached their highest levels of the year.

Should catastrophe strike and Capello’s squad fail to perform tomorrow, the company anticipates more than 15,000 bookings that would never have been made had the country progressed through to later stages.

Director of retail distribution Trevor Davis said: “While England remains in the tournament we traditionally see lower than usual booking numbers.

“However, looking at data from previous World Cups, it’s clear that as soon as the team is knocked out we see booking numbers bounce back almost instantly.

“If England fails to match their previous performances of reaching the quarter-final stages in major tournaments, then we expect to see bookings rise much earlier giving us a considerable boost to sales.

“We believe that for the travel industry as a whole this could be worth over £1 million in bookings for each day. This is more than £10 million extra in sales if the team fails to progress on Wednesday rather than lasting until the quarter-finals.”

by Dinah Hatch