Travel companies should hold their nerve and not panic into cutting prices too soon.
Well mention that to Thomas Cook and Thomson who came to the annual meeting of the Cypriot hoteliers asking for 20% less on the already contacted rates.
That’s the advice from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, based on the results of a poll of 2,000 British consumers.
Mr. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, remember you were at this annual meeting previously mentioned.
According to the PricewaterhouseCoopers research, over two thirds of those polled will trade down from their usual level of holiday, but only 16% will stop going on holiday altogether.
This must make think all the hoteliers of the world and especially the ones in Cyprus, why on earth the arrivals went down 20% in January and February? How many direct customers they won or lost??
Aside from cutting back, 25% of the 2,000 polled will take a cheaper holiday in the same location by:
- Staying in a cheaper hotel
- Can we go cheaper in Cyprus? I guess not much more. NO VAT for hotels for the next 2 years, this would be a measure.
- Opting for self-catering
- Supermarkets will have a boom at least we will sell out nice juice Limassol tomatoes, Chloraka cucumbers and Kokkinochoria potatoes.
- Taking cheaper transportation / airline
- Please call Mr. Kikis Lazaridies, President of Cyprus Airways. www.CyprusAirways.com
-Waiting for a last minute deal
-More last minute?? It would be last second.
- Cutting 14 nights to 10
- This is an opportunity for better Revenue Management.
However, the intention to cut back on holiday spend is less rife than it was last year.
This is a great opportunity to give to our customers more VALUE.
In a previous survey, 20% more respondents said they were prepared to take fewer holidays in Summer 2008 than six months later, and a fifth more were intending on cutting their holidays altogether in that previous.
This can be denominated as crisis positive growth, finally things are not that bad, we just have to be creative, communicative and give to our customers what they are looking for. After all we are in the service sector: aren’t we?
“Despite tough trading conditions the country’s transition from credit crunch to full-blown recession seems to have been met with some resilience in the travel sector,” said Preston.
“While there is no doubt that short breaks will be hit harder than in the boom years, interest rate cuts are starting to take effect and creating more discretionary income. In turn this is being pigeonholed for travel.
“The sun factor is alive. It seems holidaymakers are acclimatising to the recession and while they may be waiting for last minute deals, prioritising holiday spend remains on the agenda.”
He said consumer willingness to downgrade should offer the industry some hope, as people look forward to escaping the recession.
Mr. Preston Cyprus is the perfect place to forget recession, first of all the sun is shining 300 days a year and this alone is optimistic, then we are very friendly people and after all we all speak English.
But he said due to the late cyclical nature of the travel market, its response to the recession will not be clear until the autumn.
Like this we have time to plan for 2010 and tune our services, invest in training and prepare our new web sites.
On the domestic front, PwC believes inbound UK tourism will fall as the recession reaches more parts of the world, but this will be countered by the drop in value of the sterling and UK-domestics holidaying at home.
Even this can be seen as positive; finally we can buy in Oxford Street paying European prices.
It said this trend is driven by family based holidays, as 45% more 35–54 year olds are saying they intend to stay in the UK than when asked the same question back in July of last year.
Do we have family oriented industry? I am sure we do and if some of us we are not ready we have the time to prepare for them.
Original news was published in Travel Daily News International on March the 6th 2009.
