Kenton Jarvis, who succeeded Johan Lundgren late last year, told The Telegraph the airline and operator needed to persuade consumers booking easyJet flights that its operator can offer equally competitively priced accommodation.
He flagged Amsterdam as an example of a "really popular route", one of easyJet’s busiest in the winter, yet is predominantly being booked and travelled on by people booking their own rooms.
Plans include tweaking the easyJet website so people looking for flights to cities like Krakow or Prague are directed to a "flight plus hotel" option rather than an easyJet holidays landing page heavily focused on the beach market.
Jarvis revealed that only around 10% of easyJet’s beach passengers were currently booking accommodation with the airline and operator, falling to just 4% for city routes.
"The opportunities are huge," he said, stressing that unlike the beach market, where the quality of hotel is key, the city break market was reliant on location. "You’ve got to think about it differently."
EasyJet holidays’ profits jumped by 56% to £190 million last year (year to 30 September 2024), accounting for almost a third of easyJet’s group earnings.
Passenger numbers, meanwhile, increased by more than a third (36%), pushing up its UK market share from 5% to 7%, although it means still only around 2.5 million of easyJet’s 100 million passengers are package customers.
In October 2023, easyJet has said it wants to grow easyJet holidays, which launched in late-2019, into a £250 million a year business in the medium-term. The operator increased its Atol by some 750,000 seats last September, around a third, to more than three million for the first time.
The Telegraph reports easyJet holidays is "taking steps to offer thousands more city hotels" and is targeting partnerships "with all major chains" which it added would amount to "a step change in focus and approach", citing the operator’s chief executive Garry Wilson.
Jarvis added the sheer volume of traffic to easyJet’s website was another string to its bow, providing "an awful lot" of onward traffic to the easyJet holidays website, something its OTA rivals are having to invest vast amounts in advertising to achieve.
Other efforts to entice city break customers include removing the 23kg baggage allowance usually included in its packages to reduce fares after concluding it wasn’t necessary for these trips.
New city options include Norway’s Tromso, opening up opportunities to see the northern lights, and Strasbourg, with its historic Christmas market.
