Airlines who face severe hardship and job loss is one of the many sectors of the travel industry to feel the impact of economic downturn of full force. However, there are many indicators that people are not choosing to cancel their holidays.
An online poll of a major travel operators, Thomson and First choice, published results that reveals an “overwhelming 80 per cent of respondents” fully expected to enjoy their holidays during 2010. A similar number of people had insisted that they would not let a recession alter their planned holidays.
Other poll results also showed almost half of the respondents were planning to spend the same amount for 2010 holidays like the previous year while 24 percent also said that they plan to spend more. However, it also showed that holiday plans are changing due to a lack of money.
Respondents who admitted changing their holidays plan due to reduced finances, some 6 percent said that they had considered booking package holidays to ensure that they are covered by ATOL provisions. 13 percent said that they were taking this precaution for this 2010 holidays.
This is one side of the change in holiday booking habits but, conversely, another change has been in the way in which most people book their holidays. There are significant leap in the amount of holidays booked via small and independent operators through the internet although there may be less security when it comes to collapsed airlines. Thanks to price comparison travel websites and the success story of low-cost airlines such as easyJet and Ryanair, ordinary people feel a lot more comfortable arranging the details of their holidays themselves and creating a tailor-made experience online.
People have also become far shrewder when it comes to bargain-hunting. In the 2009 Thomson and First Choice annual trends report, some 46 per cent of respondents admitted that they would be taking advantage of hotels’ worries about the economy to obtain five-star rooms at three or four-star prices. Others have sought out the most favourable exchange rates, forsaking the Eurozone for countries such as Turkey, which is fast becoming the medium-haul destination of choice for holidays thanks to the strong position of sterling compared to the Turkish lira.