Did you get fooled by any of this year’s April 1 travel stories? Royal Caribbean’s launch of its first-ever aircraft, perhaps? Or Gold Medal and Travel 2’s move to launch a dedicated space travel division?
There are so many outlandish stories currently dominating the media (mostly beginning with the B word), you could be forgiven for believing any of the above.
But the biggest collection of April Fools on Monday were those sat in the House of Commons, as the latest round of indicative votes continued to achieve precisely nothing.
Earlier that day there was a worrying reminder from one travel giant about the challenges the ongoing uncertainty continues to pose, with easyJet forecasting a tough summer due to “weaker customer demand”.
And yet for all the continued gloom, this week it was heartening to see that in spite of warnings about market uncertainty, there remain numerous success stories of travel business bucking the trend.
South Wales miniple Tailor Made Travel is one such example – committing to further expansion with the acquisition of Cardiff-based Blue Skies Travel, while revealing another four stores are set to open later this year.
And in the week Midcounties Co-operative Travel’s homeworking arm marked its seventh anniversary, the division also reported a 7% rise in sales of repeat customers while referrals climbed 6%.
Elsewhere, the latest Atol renewals held some surprises as On the Beach Group not only boosted its licensed passengers by 200,000 but also announced it had been granted Accredited Body status – signalling its growth plans to attract “compatible new members”.
Thankfully, travel firms seem to be quietly getting on with business. If only the fools in Westminster could do the same.