The lates market is fracturing as value-conscious consumers with unrealistic budgets and expectations clash with higher holiday prices, agents have told TTG.

Gillian Polyhos, co-owner of Olive Lounge Travel in Yorkshire, said her staff have been busy fielding enquiries for a "great" summer lates market, with prices up £158pp per booking.

However, Polyhos confirmed her team have had to work hard to talk round clients unwilling to accept the kind of bargains that were common pre-Covid just aren’t as readily available, despite discounting. "There’s still a myth around last-minute holidays that prices are always good," she said. "That is not the case."

Deben Travel manager Abi Nunn agreed many of the Suffolk agency’s customers are demanding deals that simply don’t exist. “We have had a few enquiries from people with very unrealistic budgets, which creates quite a lot of work for us only then for nothing to come of it," she said. "People want to travel, but the family market has been put off by the higher prices we’re seeing at the moment.”

Niall Douglas, managing director of Oxfordshire’s Full Circle Travel, said that while pricing for summer 2025 has remained high, customers had given up waiting for price cuts and were now booking trips as little as three weeks prior to departure.

“We’re getting quite a strong lates market, especially with the middle classes," he said. "They’re waiting two or three weeks before their planned departure and are saying, ’this is the disposable income we have’ rather than booking in advance.”

Douglas added that while July business was down on last year, when the agency saw nearly 300% year-on-year growth, Full Circle’s July business was still running 200% ahead of the same month in 2023.

Creeping costs

Sue Foxall, managing director of Midlands agency Kinver Travel Centre, said that prices were between 10% to 15% higher than last year, mainly due to increased accommodation costs rather than airline ticket pricing. This, she said, had had a definite impact on the industry. “It’s the family market that’s been very slow after Christmas – it never really picked up because of the uncertain economy."

Foxall said sales had picked up since the arrival of school holidays, adding she was confident her agency would see at least single-digit growth during lates as people cut their cloth according to their circumstances.

Deals on holidays to Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria are ensuring these destinations sell well, she revealed, stressing too that customers were also downgrading their accommodation by a star to make further savings. “We’re also seeing a lot more people go for seven to 10 days instead of the normal two weeks,” she added.

Clients north of the border are also tightening their belts; Shona Thorne, director of Ayrshire’s Thorne Travel, told TTG many Scots were choosing Greece owing to the value it offers, while others were avoiding Spain following widespread media coverage of anti-tourist protests in some of the country’s most popular destinations.

Like Foxall, Thorne said shorter durations were a common theme, with some clients booking for as little as four or five days, while others were opting for self-catering and B&B options with cheaper up-front pricing.

Despite these cost-cutting tactics, Thorne said the agency’s business was up 16% year-on-year, largely thanks to increased prices of about 10%. She added: “Prices aren’t dramatically higher, but they are higher, and it is very evident with the number of discounts coming through from the operators – it’s not as good as it has been.”

Julie Pinkney, retail director of Cornish miniple Newell’s Travel, said the 11-shop agency’s largely older client base had ensured bookings for both July and September are up, while August remains down on 2024.

This, she stressed, was despite efforts to educate customers on the state of the market and pricing, and how far their money will stretch. She added cost was ensuring Spain and Greece maintained their popularity.

Discounting

Pinkney said operators were responding to the sluggish market. “There’s a lot of discounting going on," she revealed. "And they are giving us the discounts too.”

Full Circle’s Douglas added he had seen an uptick in discounting of between £100 and £200 per booking too. And like Pinkney, he said operators were sharing them with agents as opposed to only making them available to direct bookers.

“I don’t remember a summer where we’ve had quite so many discounts coming from Jet2holidays and easyJet,” he said, adding it was his belief that the ongoing economic uncertainty was driving customers to book with agents owing to the increased security and protection they offer.

This trend has been increasingly prevalent in the south west too, according to Pinkney. “We’re definitely still benefiting from the change in culture in terms of the security of booking through an agent and our regular customers now understand the benefits," she said.

Meanwhile, Sean Fletcher, owner of Harpenden’s Travel Four Seasons, said his team were channelling more and more value-conscious consumers towards long-haul options. “This year, prices for Turkey have gone up, and people are really starting to question the value. There’s much more value to be had by going long-haul, especially if you’re going to Indonesia, Vietnam or Thailand.”

Deben Travel’s Nunn said some luxury properties in the Mediterranean have increased their prices by up to a third for the summer, although she added the kind of clientele they attract are unlikely to care. "If people are used to a particular standard of hotel, then they won’t go down a level,” she said.

Nunn has also been finding better value destinations for the summer, with both Italian lakes and Austria popular with her customers. But while her and her team are proving invaluable in cutting costs for their slightly older customer base, there is one cost that continues to creep up and about which she can do nothing – travel insurance.

"One piece of feedback we’ve had, particularly from older customers, is they’re struggling to get cover at good prices," she warned. “If it is costing more than the holiday then they feel it’s just not worth it.”