At TTG’s Industry Leaders Forum earlier this month, The Advantage Travel Group and The Travel Network Group were among organisations to report a “squeezed middle”, with winter 2018-19 and 2020 holidays selling well, but summer 2019 seemingly lagging behind.
And agents speaking to TTG have reported further nuances.
This week, Shona Thorne, managing director of Kilwinning-based agency Thorne Travel, said despite a strong January, it had seen a 15% slump for sales of family holidays around Easter compared with last year.
“We’ve had a lot of demand for UK breaks and some city breaks in Europe, but the higher-value family holidays have dropped off,” she said, adding Thorne Travel had also seen a 13% rise in all-inclusive sales, with post-Brexit currency fluctuations “on customers’ minds”.
Claire Moore, co-owner and manager of Peaks Travel Elite in Shrewsbury, reported “less than normal demand” for May half-term holidays despite trading well for later in the summer.
Vim Vithaldas, group commercial and finance director at The Travel Network Group, said the consortium had seen strong demand for winter 2018 and “single-digit growth” for Easter, but its members were reporting slow conversion for summer.
Tivoli Travel’s Jo Richards echoed these findings, describing trying to convert summer sales as “like getting blood out of a stone in some cases”.
Alan Bowen, legal advisor to the Association of Atol Companies, said: “There’s no denying trading for spring and summer is flat because Brexit is the only story in town.
“Travel has a real issue towards the end of March, as there are still so few assurances – indeed, will we even leave on March 29? People still want to go on holiday but it’s a case of when they’ll book.”
Tony Mann, director of Idle Travel, said he believed February would be “massively telling” in how summer 2019 would play out following an “unpredictable” January.
“We haven’t seen people coming in to mop up summer 2019 as we have in previous years,” he said. “Brexit is really starting to chip away at confidence the longer it drags on.”
Richards agreed, adding: “Things are ticking along, but we didn’t see the January rush to book for the summer.”
