Asked by the presenter “what has happened” to expected bookings for Easter to the Middle East, Dame Irene said: “Unsurprisingly, bookings are down.
“As of last night, compared to the same week last year, our bookings were 9% down, which is actually an improvement on last week when news of the war was still emerging.
“So at the moment we have a dampening of people booking and an increase in people either wanting to change their holiday or perhaps cancel.”
Asked to elaborate on the destinations affected,” Dame Irene continued: “The capacity issues as you’d expect are over the main hubs to the east.
“Using Dubai as an example. Dubai handles approximately 200,000 passengers a day so anyone transiting east, say to the Maldives or Mauritius, we have a problem with capacity there.”
Dame Irene said there was still “a lot of available capacity” for the west and Europe.
“For us at the moment, short-haul is dominating and the winners there are Spain and Portugal, Italy, Malta.
“Prices were already increased on last year but at the moment we are still seeing lots of capacity at reasonable prices across Europe.
“Obviously cruises are incredibly popular. For some cruise lines last week, the number of bookings had actually increased.
“Cruise lines can change their itinerary, they have a flexibility that land based resorts do not.
“At the minute it’s Europe and cruise which are increasing in bookings.”
Asked to comment on whether “the Middle East travel trends” image for travel would be tarnished in the long term, Dame Irene was optimistic.
“Having gone through several difficulties over the last 46 years, everything from the ash cloud to covid and insurgencies and war, the British population are an island nation of travellers and they want to travel to new and different places, be that west or east.
“In my opinion this will come back and people will always want to do the Maldives, Mauritius, India. They may be a bit more circumspect but I believe it will come back.”
