Summer Holidays Rush Begins?
With travel agencies opening for the first day after Christmas traditionally, today, begins the big booking period for summer holidays. Its cold across most of the country but dry on the whole and it will be bright.
Why the weather forecast?
Generally if it is raining, snowing or the weather is miserable then summer holiday bookings increase. The milder and nicer the weather, the sages tell us, the lower the bookings.
Just before Christmas, ABTA and the Foreign Office released the results of a survey of 2,018 adults which said the top destinations that people were looking at were in Turkey and Egypt. The UK doesn’t seem to be at the top of their list but I would have thought that the economic downturn and the weakness of the pound would make the UK attractive this year. At least you know how much your money will buy come the holiday.
And overseas?
Well both Turkey and Egypt are outside the eurozone so the pound hasn’t slid so far against their currencies. Others suggested by the survey include Cuba, Croatia, Mexico and the Caribbean. I would have thought you could also add destinations that offer all-inclusive holidays wherever they might be. People will want to know that they have budgetted for virtually all their holiday spend. Already in November (for which the latest figures are available) Spain has had quite a downturn in tourist numbers and it could be that in order to try and attract more tourists there may be Spanish bargains. Remember though that with the demise of so many tour operators and ther mergers of First Choice with Thomsons and MyTravel with Thomas Cook that there will be fewer holidays around this summer.
Today and tomorrow the newspapers will be filled with holiday adverts to lure you to their destinations and into travel agancies. We will keep an eye on them and let you know early next week what we find.
Entries (RSS 2.0)
