Terrorism, perceived or real, was yesterday blamed by another company for poor trading, as MyTravel, the UK package tour operator, highlighted the August anti-terrorist alert among a host of factors contributing to a fall in its projected profits.
While industry observers debated whether the sector was experiencing a blip or something more deep-rooted in people's changing travel habits, the profits warning has put a decided chill into the warm September climes for package travel operators.
MyTravel insists it is a blip, so much so that despite a fall in expected full-year profits from an expected £75-£85 million (€110-€125 million) to £40-£45 million, it remains convinced it can return margins of 3.5 per cent in the UK next summer.
Peter McHugh, MyTravel's chief executive, says the blip arises from the convergence of four relatively random events. Terror alerts, the World Cup and the hot British summer are three of them.
The fourth is what he claims was the decision of up to 700,000 people, normally MyTravel customers, not just to follow England in Germany during the World Cup but to turn the occasion into their summer holiday.
But analysts wondered whether MyTravel was using the terrorist threat to mask more fundamental changes in the industry.
Tour operators and their allied charter airlines have for several years been suffering a heavy loss of market share to the scheduled low-cost carriers. - (Financial Times service)
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