Farcical UK weather forecasters prompt search for sun
Wednesday, 05 Mar, 2010
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TravelMole guest comment by youtravel.com sales and marketing director Paul Riches
Somehow we are already in the third month of 2010.
This means that we’re in a great position to look back on the ‘peaks’ season – so, how was it for you? Did January and February perform as expected?
For many the year got off to a disastrous start as the snow rendered much of the UK house-bound.
Employees were unable to make it to their offices, shoppers didn’t leave their homes and the high street, in general suffered.
This, naturally, had an effect on the first few weeks of the January peaks.
However, all was not lost. For many, us included, the snow was a bonus as it drove online sales and we saw a healthy start to the peaks season.
Once things had settled down after the snow had gone, the major question was over whether people were going to commit to making a holiday purchase – an overseas one – or whether they were believing the ‘staycation’ hype.
Thousands of people got caught by the Met Office’s promise of a barbeque summer last year; this year it seems that they’re voting with their feet against the farcical weather forecasters by leaving the country for some sun this year.
For us winter sun sales have been very strong, with Egypt and the Canaries out-performing the previous winter. This could potentially be due to those who take a long-haul winter break trading down to something closer to home to save some money.
Looking ahead to the summer and spring, cities for the Easter break are performing well with Rome, New York and Dubai all showing strong demand.
Beyond that, forward bookings for the summer are coming through – leading the charge are Egypt and Turkey with healthy growth coming also for the Canaries, Portugal, Malta and Morocco.
Spain is trading flat year-on-year currently, we’d expect this to come through as we approach the summer season when hotelier release more favourable rates.
Judging by the fact that we’re all just getting over the January peak – and are now thinking about the July and August peak travelling period, it seems that this industry is permanently caught between twin peaks.
The challenge for us is to ride them out and not allow ourselves to be caught in the troughs.
Phil Davies
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