The travel trade is bracing itself for a challenging lates market, with customers conditioned to expect bargains but unwilling to travel to certain destinations.
The effective ban on travel to Tunisia and flights to Sharm el Sheikh has taken out two competitively-priced destinations while other holiday hotspots such as Turkey are continuing to prove unattractive, meaning availability is becoming increasingly tight in favourites such as mainland Spain and the Canaries.
“Already we’re seeing challenges with availability, particularly looking at the families market, with a large percentage not wanting to go to Turkey, which has fantastic availability,” said Lee Hunt, managing director of Suffolk-based Deben Travel.
“Unfortunately, it’s somewhere that people have in their mind they don’t want to go to and because of that the Spanish prices have gone up and it is just pricing certain families out of the market.”
Carl Winn, travel operations manager at the Channel Islands Co-operative, which has branches on both Jersey and Guernsey, agreed and said his consultants had been trying to encourage customers to book early this year.
“I don’t think the lates market is like it was. It will be even more difficult this year because of supply and demand. A lot of hoteliers are running at high occupancy in places like the Balearics and the Canary Islands because they’re perceived to be safer destinations.”
In February, Abta warned holidaymakers to book early due to increased demand and competition for accommodation.
"The fear of overbooking will not be exaggerated this year"
Alan Bowen
Thomas Cook has already reported increased demand for Spain and long-haul destinations, with fewer people heading to Turkey this summer. Rival Tui Group has noted a similar situation.
However Alan Bowen, legal advisor to the Association of Atol Companies, said the EU referendum and Euro 2016 would put some off booking early and likely lead to greater demand for late deals.
“There will be a latent demand for last minute holidays – with the referendum and the Euros, there will be a lot of people that haven’t booked yet. The question is, what’s going to be available?” he said.
“It won’t be Spain or Portugal because they’re full up. It might be Bulgaria or Croatia, and there’ll be lots and lots of room in Turkey. Brussels and Paris [terror attacks] has really made people think.
“Demand is also strong from Germany – they are also not going to these places; they all want Spain. The fear of overbooking will not be exaggerated this year,” he added.
Meanwhile, the shortage of supply in “safer” short-haul destinations is opening up other destinations and sectors for agents to tap into.
Hunt said his agency was finding “great value” with long-haul holidays.
“Although year-to-date our passenger numbers are down, our sales are up the best part of 20% because we’re finding we’re converting more people to go long-haul,” he said.
Steve Pattenden, owner of Double S Travel in Bedfordshire, suggested that the cruise market could be another of the beneficiaries.
“There’s a lot of tonnage that’s chasing a lot of people, and so prices are very keen at the moment. “We saw our cruise business grow by 20% last year and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down.”
Online travel agency Planet Cruise has also cited a “significant rise” in cruise holiday sales, claiming to be 25% up for this summer compared with 2015.