Tour operators who prayed for rain found their pleas answered in August, with some agents reporting high sales volumes at far from bargain basement prices as fears of a fire sale receded with operators putting on record capacity this summer.
Agent commentary points towards a market where those who waited for last-minute deals were left disappointed, while those able to pay did just that – handsomely.
“I’ve never known a summer like it," said Niall Douglas, managing director of Oxfordshire agency Full Circle Travel. "We’ve been so busy in what is typically our quietest period of the year."
He added: “I think there have been a number of factors for that – the election and the Euros, tied in with the bad weather.
“There’s been quite a lot of availability for the late stuff, and we’ve even had some people booking for the next day. The prices for the big boys like Jet2holidays and Tui have been fairly sensible.
“But when you look at flights for destinations like Portugal, the Canaries and Turkey – there are crazy high prices. I think the airlines know people are going to pay them. Package prices are without a doubt better value at the moment.”
‘We’ve lost our position in Europe’
Robust pricing has created issues, according to Paul Dayson, who runs Spa Travel in Boston Spa. “With people that want to go away last minute, the problem is the prices," he explained. "We are advising shorter durations or to changing board basis.
"What they want to spend isn’t enough. I had one client with a £1,400 budget. They wanted a decent hotel and all-inclusive, but when you break it down it’s not a lot if the flight is £250 each. I advised them to go half-board.”
Dayson points towards a shift in supply of rooms following the pandemic, with UK operators now having to compete on a more global basis when contracting. "I think since Covid, we’ve lost our position in Europe," he continued. "We’ve lost the premium air slots and now hoteliers are saying no.
"I think prices are what they should have been years ago – now we are on a par with what the Scandinavians, Germans and Russians are paying. The US is driving it as well, especially in Greece and Italy.
"We’ve had occasions where hoteliers won’t honour contracts with operators – they’ve said that price is not available any more.” This, Dayson added, is putting some clients off: “A lot of people are saying they will wait until next year.”
Looking at the bigger picture, data from Barclays shows consumer card transactions in travel agencies were up by 11.7% in August, with spend up 7.2% year-on-year. Given that 2023 was a record year, it is an indication that prices remain heightened.
Kelly Cookes, the Advantage Travel Partnership’s chief commercial officer, agreed the robust-demand, high-price scenario appears to have played out.
“The strong sales we’re seeing, along with the average selling price performance, demonstrates that prices are holding and are ahead of last year,” she said.
“Demand over the past few weeks has continued to be strong with mass-market sales up by 20% on last year, long-haul up by 15% and cruise up by 33%."
However, she added consumers “are still very much seeking value for money”. “We can see this in the fact that all-inclusive remains incredibly popular.”
‘General appetite for travel’
In Scotland, Scott Murray of Murray Travel in Inverness, also said the weather had “played a part”, but added: “I wouldn’t say we’ve had a massive lates.
"We definitely had a lull when the Euros and Olympics were on, then July was our third-biggest month ever, but there is an awful lot for next year as well.
"I think pricing of lates is still quite high; maybe people waited to see if prices would drop and they didn’t. People that have the budgets are spending, but families are not stretching to the current pricing levels for Europe.”
In Northern Ireland, Oasis Travel managing director Sandra Corkin saw a different booking pattern. “We’ve been really busy in July and August after June was very average for us," she said. "We saw a lot of last-minute bookings in July, and then in August, they were mainly for winter and next summer.
"I honestly put it down to the weather being so bad and people desperately looking for something good to look forward to. There seems to be a general appetite out there for travel because they want something happy and uplifting."
Corkin said there had been an absence of “silly” prices in the lates market, adding “they weren’t cheap, but they weren’t inflated”.
“Previously, we’ve seen prices have been inflated for late bookers in the summer, but this year we were still able to get people holidays at realistic prices,” she said.
However, Corkin said high flight prices had been apparent, and that because of this, “people could see the advantages of coming to travel agents to buy a package”.
“We do feel encouraged by what we’ve seen in the last two months,” she added.
