If you thought some holiday resorts can get crowded try visiting a travel agent this month. With the summer selling season in full swing, most resemble the nightmarish reception area of a Majorcan hotel, complete with flustered staff, lengthy queues and hopping telephones.
Only the damp weather outside reminds customers that they have not yet left Ireland.
The frenzy began earlier than normal this year after First Choice, owner of Falcon and JWT, brought forward the release of its summer brochures by six weeks. Already half of the total seats available with the two operators have been booked out.
A further surge in demand is expected before next Friday when JWT's special offer deadline expires. By booking before that date, couples can avail of a discount of £50, while customers travelling to certain locations in Greece or Turkey can buy two weeks for the price of one.
Budget Travel's brochure launch last week has also provoked huge interest. In the first three hours' trading, more than 16,500 bookings were made. By the end of the month, the company expects to have sold at least 80 per cent of its total programme of 300,000 seats, up from 230,000 last year.
Such brisk early selling, however, can give a distorted picture of the travel market.
As Mr Sean O'Donoghue of Dublin's Apex Travel explains: "Agents are now taking larger pre-allocations of seats to make sure they're not left short when summer comes round. There is no way 80 per cent of the country has already booked a holiday."
He says the trend has resulted in a situation where "travel agents are becoming mini tour operators", more vulnerable to changing market conditions.
"If another big English tour operator came into the market, and the market was saturated with holidays, a lot of agents could find themselves in trouble."
The trend is also making it more difficult for the customer to book their first choice holiday, says Ms Sandra O'Reilly of the Cork-based Joe O'Reilly Travel Group.
"God bless the poor punter who has to go around 34 agents in Cork to see which one has the seats he is looking for," she says. "Previously, everything was centralised through the tour operator but now agents are sitting on seats to make sure their valuable clients are looked after."
As well as giving the impression that most people have already booked a holiday, the frenzied early selling misleadingly suggests only bargain package tours are in demand.
According to Mr Brendan Moran, chief executive of the Irish Travel Agents Association (ITAA), "the big shift in market terms is towards more quality holidays and away from the £99 package tour.
"People are prepared to spend that little bit more. Given the kind of lifestyles people have today and the pressure they're under at work when they take their holidays they want everything to be right."
Irish people spent an estimated £250 million on foreign holidays last year, he says, with just under 500,000 bookings made, an increase of 10 per cent on 1997. This year he predicts that figure will rise to 600,000.
"Tour operators have planned for about that many holidays and have increased their capacity accordingly."
He rejects the claim that operators may have underestimated the demand, given the number of bookings so far.
"Operators have to be cautious. We don't want to end up with the situation of a few years ago when tour operators were going out of business because they were left with holidays they couldn't sell.
"There are plenty of deals still out there although people are advised to book now if they want to be guaranteed their first choice. By April or May they may only be able to get their third or fourth choice."
Perhaps the greatest indicator of the strength of the Irish travel market has been the interest shown from the main British tour operators.
Following the acquisition of Budget Travel by Thomson Holidays and JWT by First Choice, Airtours - the second largest operator in Britain - bought Panorama last September. With a package tour market share of about 10 per cent, Panorama this year increased the number of its seats on offer by 30 per cent to 45,000.
Mr Niall McDonnell, the company's chief executive, says its plan "is to grow in a structured, steady manner" with new destinations being introduced in the coming seasons. It is also planning to expand its winter sun and ski programmes, reflecting an increase in the number of people who are taking two or three short holidays a year rather than one long one.
"Demands at work mean that people can't stay away for too long. They're taking two one-week holidays instead of going away for two weeks in one go," says Mr Moran.
An additional boost to the industry this year is the end of the millennium, for which many people are planning to travel overseas. According to Mr O'Donoghue "there is a huge interest in trips for the new year but that doesn't seem to be stopping people from taking a holiday during the summer also. There's just so much money around."
Already, he says, he has received a number of family bookings of up to £6,000 for millennium holidays. As with ordinary holidays, he advises anyone thinking of ringing in the 21st century in Edinburgh or Times Square, New York, to book early for the best value.
"A hotel in New York which normally costs £130 a night in December is now quoting over £300 a night. In six months time you'd be very lucky to get anything near that price."
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