No flight to cheaper hols

If you had hoped that the price of a typical family holiday in July or August would come down because of the recession, think again, writes CONOR POPE

IN RECENT days many people who have grown weary of all the ice, snow, floods, water shortages and gloomy economic forecasts have turned their attention to what they hope will be happier days ahead and started looking up sun-drenched beaches online and making tentative calls to their travel agents.

Over 90 per cent of the country’s tour operators have reported a significant upsurge in the number of queries coming in over the last three weeks compared with the same period last year, according to a survey carried out by the trade publication TravelBiz.ie last week.

While bookings are still slow, the increased interest has given rise to a good deal of optimism in the trade.

Damian Mooney of Falcon Travel told Price Watch last week that sales had been “quite strong” so far this year.

“Not so long ago we were talking about people taking multiple holidays every year and that has obviously come to a halt for most of us and last year was a period of significant readjustment but I think we might be coming through that now,” he says.

With Ireland in an unprecedented deflationary spiral, should consumers expect to find cheaper holidays this year? The bad news is probably not.

The package holiday market contracted significantly after Budget Travel’s closure in November and, while its rivals would not have revelled in the company’s financial difficulties, they will certainly capitalise on the resulting diminished supply to keep their prices higher than they might otherwise have been.

Although some of deals the operators shout about seem pretty extraordinary and grab headlines, they are mostly low-season offerings and prices in July and August have remained largely untouched by the downturn, according to industry sources, and anyone hoping to bag a deal in a top resort in July or August can forget about it.

“Prices have been pretty constant at peak times,” Mooney says. “The overall supply in our market is down, at least 20 per cent of the capacity is gone so there will be less packages around. By leaving it later people are running the risk of losing out, particularly if they have specific requirements.”

Gerry Benson of TravelBiz says people are “always going to get deals” if they leave it to the last minute, but warns that their “choices are going to be very limited and you might find that you have very little control over where you end up”.

Although Tania Airy of Sunway Travel is somewhat more circumspect about when best to make a booking – she compares it to backing a horse – she is fairly certain long haul prices are cheaper than they’ll ever be.

“The price you pay really does depend on the dates but right now the US is available for nothing and you will not get it any cheaper if you leave it later, I’m 99 per cent certain of that. We have four-night packages to Las Vegas including hotels, flights and charges for around €500 and business is booming.”

The long haul deals are certainly pretty remarkable. Sunway currently has four nights in Los Vegas from €589 including flights, accommodation and taxes while three nights in New York costs just €565 and four nights in San Francisco €585 – all these prices are for February.

The tour operator is also selling week-long family holidays to Orlando in March from €489 per person based on two adults and two children under 12 sharing.

When it comes to high season, however, it is an entirely different story with both Mooney and Airy agreed that finding a week-long sun holiday for two adults and two children for anywhere close to €1,000 is not possible.

“No, it really couldn’t be done, not unless you went outside of school holidays and left it until the very last minute,” Airy says.

At risk of annoying teachers all over the country, maybe that is exactly what people should do, at least those with children in primary school – the financial imperative is certainly there.

Two weeks in the Janelas do Mar apartments on the Algarve from May 8th with Falcon Travel costs €1,784 while a fortnight in the same resort in the middle of July with the same operator is €2,963, a price difference of nearly €1,200.

The potential savings explain why the idea of taking children out of school in May or September occupies the minds of many people who use online parenting forums.

A recent poll on magicmum.com asked whether mothers thought it was okay to take children out? Last Wednesday some 68 per cent of people polled said they would consider taking their children on holidays during school term while 29 per cent would not.

There are other ways of finding cheaper deals. The internet has transformed the holiday landscape over the past decade and people no longer have to throw themselves at the mercy of travel agents and hope they don’t get sent to some half-built kip and can now trawl online picture galleries and get detailed, first-hand accounts of all but the least-visited destinations.

Depending on where and when you go and how much time you have to research deals, a DIY holiday can knock up to 25 per cent off the price of an identical package being offered by a tour operator – although, to be fair, it is impossible sometimes to match the travel agents’ deals, especially at the lower end of the market.

The DIY route is not, however, for everyone. Benson says that while the DIY option can work out cheaper in some cases it is not as simple as it sounds.

“In around 20 or 30 per cent of cases the DIY option can work very well, particularly if you are travelling without children and are going point-to-point but, if you are travelling with young children, what the package gives you that nothing else can is total confidence. There are airport transfers, reps on site and people you can talk to when you get back home if there is a problem. The other important point is that the tour operators are all completely bonded so the consumer is afforded greater protection. Money is tight for most people now and, if they are spending €2,000 on their summer holidays, they want to have confidence that they are getting good value for money.”

Benson is right when he says that the DIY option lacks a safety net but that will change. Last year the then EU consumer affairs commissioner Meglena Kuneva announced plans to use legislation to extend the protection to people booking holidays independently of tour operators. Before any new directive for the internet age can be shepherded through, there will be a consultative process involving the major stakeholders in the tourism industry, most notably the airlines, car-hire companies and hotels who will be affected by the new proposals and the chances of it being resolved before this summer are almost non-existent.

Top Tips To Spend Less

1Take your time: If you're flying alone or as part of a chilled out couple to a place well served by many carriers, book late as a better deal is probably just around the corner. If not, you can always go the following week. Online booking services, such as www.skyscanner.net and www.travelocity.com, have fare alert systems which allow you to specify a flight and your price, and they will notify you if the price ever drops below that rate.

2Hurry up: If you're booking a family holiday, book early! Last-minute deals at peak times are almost unheard of for flights or packages for families to popular, child-friendly destinations, particularly in July and August or during midterm breaks.

3Broaden your horizons: Don't rely exclusively on Ryanair and Aer Lingus, and always check out other airlines that fly into and out of Ireland in search of bargains. You can occasionally find deals with online agents, such as Ebookers.ie, Expedia.co.uk and Lastminute.com.

4Go north: Readers have contacted us to point out that package deals with well known tour operators which depart from Belfast can work out significantly cheaper than identical packages which go from Cork or Dublin. For long-haul flights, don't confine searches to the UK hubs. Flights to South America, Asia and Africa can be cheaper from Paris, Amsterdam or Frankfurt.

5Work at it: Keep an eye out for sales. Read the small ads in the newspapers, sign up to e-mail newsletters and alerts, and trawl the web for late deals.