# Do you think holidays will be cheaper this year?



## samanthajane (28 Feb 2009)

hi all, really really want to go on holiday this year, but facing the fact that it might not be possible. I would of thought that prices of holidays would of started to come down by now, but i'm looking every week and there is no price drop at all. So i was thinking of just waiting till the summer and cheaking out prices like 1-2 days before your due to leave. I met one couple a last year ago that booked 2 days before they left and they got a weeks accommodation and flights for just 400 euro, stupid me paid 4 times that much. I always thought the last min deals you ended up in crap accommodation, obviously not as it was a nice place we stayed in. Was it just lucky of them or does this happen alot. Anyone know of any real good deals on at the moment. I'm only looking to go away for a week there's no way i can afford the usual 2 weeks but if i got away at all i'd be delighted.


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## allthedoyles (28 Feb 2009)

We used to always book our sun holidays in January..........But as you say there does not yet appear to be any real savings out there .............

This year we are going to wait and see.......................

As demand usually dictates price , we reckon prices will have to drop at some stage


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## oldnick (1 Mar 2009)

From a licensed Dublin travel agent with 30 years in tour operating and travel agency business and still  surviving....

This year most clients are putting off their decision to book a Summer holiday.
This means that operators are now cancelling Summer flights.
It also means that many travel agents have closed shop.
It also means that at least one major long-established tour operator will go bust .

you see, when a flight is 80% booked a few weeks before departure the tour operator will then sell off the last 20% cheaply-and maybe the last few seats very cheaply .the total monies collected still make a profit.

But when a flight is still empty a few weeks before departure the tour operator cancels the flight or goes broke. The tour operator cannot survive selling its Summer holidays at half price, especially as it has been making a loss during the off-peak periods, like May.


We tell my my clients - _if you don't mind where you go at the last minute then ,yes, there will be great deals so don't book now_ ( We say that because I want and get happy repeat clients who we have not lied to,especially as my travel agency is not in a rich suburb )
But I do emphasise that the choice will be limited.

Now, if one of the top four tour operators does go broke then that'll immediately mean the other three will increase their prices and fill up. So the moment the news breaks run to your nearest travel agent.


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## samanthajane (1 Mar 2009)

oh i feel bad now i dont like the thought of small businesses going bust. I always try and avoid the chains where i can but sometimes you just cant help it. I know the airlines wont reduce prices but the hotels and apartments wont they cut prices to get people to travel, they depend on tourists. 

So as your in the business yourself are you saying that a lot of people haven't booked yet and everyone is waiting to get cheaper deals which means most of these holidays might not go ahead. I'm more worried about booking a holiday now cause knowing my luck whoever i go with will go bust and then i'll lose all the money i paid for the holiday. 

Last year i paid €2400 for 2 weeks, for 2 adults and 2 children, obviously not including spending money. This year like i said its only going to be 1 week, it's the spending money that adds it up for 2 weeks that i cant afford. 

I dont really care where i go, all i require is sun, sand and sea. So for a weeks holiday for 2 adults and 2 children what deals are you offering at the moment? For just a week i was looking at paying max €800 - €1000. What can i get for that at the moment?


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## oldnick (1 Mar 2009)

dont feel bad -everyone is delaying purchasing or getting the best deal they can whether on holidays, cars or houses. I'm no different. I follow my wife around the house turning off lights and heating... 

... anyway, whenever you book, you will never lose money if you book with a licensed travel agent -your money is refunded by the government. (I assume you're in ireland not Tibet).

now,  at present, the tour operators are holding their nerve for Summer and (almost)sticking to high brochure prices. They're all hoping for a big post-Easter booking boom.                                                                                                      

They've already cut a number of flights where they see there is over-capacity (too many flights to the same place)  or where there seems to be little interest.  However, they claim that although they will cut flights they won't cut prices. I wonder???



So -_at present_ - the prices for peak season mid June onwards are still high. Stupidly so in my opinion. You will be looking at nearer to 1700 for a week and 2.000 for two weeks wherever you go. 

In May the same places are now selling for 1200 for a week and 1400 for two weeks. And I think they'll be cheaper still in a few days. Possibly one thousand or less for your family.
but whether you'll get that in peak-season I just can't say....

Anyway, don't rush into anything for now.

I cant help with actual bookings as I'm not allowed to on this forum ("no advertising or commercial business") but if you advise me the ages of your kids and the earliest you can go I can give you my predictions as to what you should pay and the chances of the price going down....


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## samanthajane (1 Mar 2009)

my children are 9 and 6. And no i'm not in tibet lol Althought i am in london but i'm coming back to ireland in 5 weeks!

It's kind of hard to know when's the earliest i can go. I'm still trying to figure out if my children will be going to a school in NI or if they will go back to their old school in dublin. There's about 3-4 weeks in the difference of when they break up from school. I'm 80% sure that they will be going back to their school in dublin so they break up in the 3rd week of june. It might even be earlier last year it was the 2nd week but thats cause easter was messed up being in so early and they didn't have a week off for feb half term so they finished early. 

Anyway ( sorry i have a habit of rambling on...) lets just say the earliest time we could go is the 3rd week of june and although i shouldn't really say this if there's a major price difference i will go earlier. 

Thanks for the help


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## helllohello (1 Mar 2009)

would you consider booking flights and apartment seperate. I always book flights and then apartment / hotel or villa and it always works out loads cheaper than a package deal. loads of cheap flights around for malaga / canaries and lots of irish people have apartments waiting to be rented out.


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## oldnick (2 Mar 2009)

samanthajane - hellohello has a point. At present you can book Aer Lingus flights from Dublin to,say, Ibiza on certain dates in late June early july for under 600 for family  -or from Belfast to faro for about the same.
If you find an apt for 400 euros -and this year anything is possible -then you are getting your week for a grand.
Apt must be within reasonable distance from airport otherwise taxi costs mean you lose cost advantage.

I do believe that eventually you'll get similar price with bonded tour operator who provides transfers and (supposed) better care and may have more family-friendly accommodation available - but I couldn't guarantee it.

You have to pay full amount for flight right now and maybe property also - plus you have to make sure property or the owner isn't dodgy. 
Obviously dont book flights unless you've checked  cheap accommodation is available.

I reckon though that as you are in some uncertainty regarding your return to Ireland your best bet is a last minute cheapy from Dublin or Belfast. Both cities have masses of unsold availability for late June early july.


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## samanthajane (2 Mar 2009)

hellohello- i did do that once when i went to vegas with my mum and i saved €1100 euro. I tried to do that last year with my summers holiday and it was a total nightmare, trying to get in contact with the various hotels, and the prices i found were only €100 or so less than what i would of got with a tour operator. I know i want to save money but when you factor in flight transfers and all that i wasn't actually saving anything. Also with the kids when i book with a tour operator i'm more guaranteed that other children will be around as well and being in a place that has entertainment and kids clubs. My idea of a holiday is to lay around the pool/beach and do nothing! And let my kids be entertained by other kids, i can read a book in peace and not have to re-tie my bikini top every 2 mins to get up and play with the kids. Oh god that makes me sound like a really bad mum doesn't it? I will actually play with them in the water but i dont want to spend 7 hours a day in it, and we would go on trips as well. One holiday we took there was very few kids, i was wrecked every day entertaining them i needed a holiday to recover when i got back from the holiday. I found that apartments that you can rent privately are mostly couples wanting to get away from all the kids, not sure they would like us and 2 kids turning up. Let me know if i'm wrong on this, i only got this from one of those "rate where you stayed" websites. Maybe i'll have another go at booking directly with the hotels they might be more helpful this year since i'm sure there well aware of the recession and will want to get as much business as possible. 

Oldnick... just cause i'm curious about something you said. 

you see, when a flight is 80% booked a few weeks before departure the tour operator will then sell off the last 20% cheaply-and maybe the last few seats very cheaply .the total monies collected still make a profit.

But when a flight is still empty a few weeks before departure the tour operator cancels the flight or goes broke. The tour operator cannot survive selling its Summer holidays at half price, especially as it has been making a loss during the off-peak periods, like May.

Does that mean that you have to buy the holidays in advance and then sell them on? So what happens if you dont sell all the holidays? Do you just lose that money. I always thought that you would get a comission or a percentage of each holiday that you sold. So hotels are already paid for the rooms weather people are in them or not as well as the airlines? Thats not very fair, glad i'm not a travel agent!!


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## oldnick (2 Mar 2009)

SamanthaJane...

a *travel agent* takes no risk-other than costs of running a shop. Basically we are parasites that live off the commission given by tour operators, airlines, hotels etc.

*Tour operators* are different .They take the risk. They block-book fights and accommodation long in advance and produce glossy brochures.
Depending on the contract with the airline/hotel the tour operator must pay that hotel or airline several weeks in advance.
 So, if the tour operator Bodge-it Travel has a contract with Crash Airlines to fly to,say, Gaza every week in the Summer plus a contract for forty rooms in Hotel Hamas  then on a certain date ,say, 1st April  Bodge-it must pay over a large sum to the airline/hotel.

If, on Ist April Bodge-it Travel see that people are just not booking their family holiday to Gaza it cancels the flight and hotel and saves that big payment. 

If bookings look good on 1ST April, Bodge-it Travel pay the money to crash Airlines and Hotel Hamas and hopefully sells the rest of the Gaza programme during the Summer. If,shortly before departure date, there's still a few empty seats Bodge-it sell them off cheaply.  

So, iduring the next few weeks  tour operators are looking how bookings are going before making the final cancel-programme decisions. If a certain percent of a flight remains unsold by a certain date then operators are reluctant to hand over big payments to airlines and hotels. The percentage and the date varies. But generally this year operators are being cautious and are already cancelling destinations that are not selling well. (e.g. yesterday Budget scrapped its Fuerteventura programme)

(Actually I reckon Ryanair and Aer Lingus may also cancel some of their scheduled flights -they dont like flying empty either.  Neither tour operators nor airlines can wait till the last moment for clients to decide whether to book or not. )

I,as a travel agent, don't have commitments like operators -i just take commission for what i sell -and increasingly in my case that means anything from Australia to Zululand. People may not be booking packages early but eventually they go somewhere.

I don't know why I'm telling you all this. I'm obviously a talkative insomniac like you !
Thats why my staff dont want me in the shop -I talk to long to the clients. But now I'm away for a few days.


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## samanthajane (2 Mar 2009)

ha ha oldnick, thanks for explaining it too me now i know the difference between a travel agent and a tour operator. Yeterday to me they were the same thing lol At least i wasn't completly clueless you do just get commission.

mmmmmmm i was actually thinking of going to Fuerteventura,but i'd never book with bodge-it as you call them lol I always book with travel agents so that they get a piece of the pie aswell. 

So to pick your brains a bit more.......since no one is booking and they decide to cancel flights and hotels, they cant possible do this on every single holiday, so the way i see it a) your gonna be left with much fewer places to choose from, and b) when people do start to book there's going to be less availability so wont this make them think they can put the prices up even more. 

Also when a travel agent tells you there are only x amount of places left on a flight and only x number of rooms left at the hotel you want to stay at and it's only jan/feb/mar ( and i'm not talking about this year) are they actually telling the truth or porkie pies. I must be the most unlucky person in the world cause every holiday i have booked that has been the case, but fair play to them cause i always thought oh crap and out comes the card to pay for the deposit.


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## oldnick (2 Mar 2009)

quick reply .early night.
Yes -it is the hope of operators that a mass cancellation (Or consolidation as they call it) will mean higher prices. But I dont think they'll cut enough so there will be bargains...

Do agents lie ?
Short-sighted travel agents or those in the middle of a big city with no regular client base will lie and tell you that the flight/holiday/resort is "almost full" and you better book now.
those travel agents who want to see their clients every year will not tell their clients complete lies....especially if you are based in a working class suburb where pennies count and people know each other. Word-of-mouth is essential to a good agent.

We are telling our clients -as I'm telling you - if you are not  demanding on a particular resort/hotel then this Summer there will be good deals even with operators cancelling many flights......except if one of the big ones goes broke thus reducing overall capacity ex-Dublin by 20-30%. 

There are certain places and certain hotels that do attract a regular following and on some dates they are already full.. but there'll be others that wont fill.

but, look, I put my savings into property and shares a few years ago so who am i to forecast anything ? Who can tell what will happen nowadays ?


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## noel_c (9 Mar 2009)

oldnick said:


> quick reply .early night.
> Yes -it is the hope of operators that a mass cancellation (Or consolidation as they call it) will mean higher prices. But I dont think they'll cut enough so there will be bargains...


Thanks for the interesting insight into the travel industry Oldnick. 

We decided to be cautious this year and hold off instead of booking well in advance as we normally would have. However there doesn't seem to be a very noticeable difference so far this year. Is it that case that many agents won't advertise summer deals at this time as they're still trying to catch customers at higher price levels? With the huge fall in consumer spending in the last 6 months it seems hard to believe that holiday prices would stay at the same level. But the prospect of tour operators reducing supply might limit the reduction.


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## spursfan1234 (9 Mar 2009)

flight and apartment is the way to go. i have booked a flight and apartment in the algarve for 500 euro for the last two weeks of august. haggle with the apartment owners, they are very quiet this year!!


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## oldnick (10 Mar 2009)

Just as nobody can predict what will happen to the economy and ,indeed, just as there are conflicting opinions from "experts" as to what should be done , so it is with the travel business....

This is the tour operators stance as of this week....
1). they have now cancelled one-third of the flights/holidays advertised in the 2010 brochures. Cancellations disporoportionately heavy from non-Dublin airports.
2) they have slashed prices up till May  (two adults and two kids  for under 700 euros for a week in the sun in several places!)
3)But - the tour operators claim - they won't discount so much in Summer because that is when demand is and they have already reduced the number of flights.

*My *opinion - as a fantastically knowledgeable and uniquely honest travel agent - is
1) that tour operators ,by halving the price of many May holidays, have created the expectation that they will eventually do the same for Summer. Therefore clients will hold off and tour operators will reduce prices . the tour operators are to blame for effectively encouraging people to delay booking. 

2) Airlines also have too much capacity. Hence, constant "four day sales" - as at present with Aer Lingus.  Yes, _at present_ you can get cheaper Summer deals booking flight and accommodation seperately. ( A good agent can do that and arrange cheap transfers if desired. And ,at least, your payment is safe and you have someone to complain to if things go wrong.). 

These airline promotions will further encourage tour operators to face reality and reduce Summer prices. So, eventually, there may be no need to book seperate flights and accommodation.

3) One uncertainty - will a big tour operator cease trading? Possibly -and that will increase prices. Will an airline slash routes and just park their planes as is happening in USA ?  Possibly -and that will also increase prices.

_To sum up - I'm pretty sure that you'll get great deals to Europe with tour operators for June-August if you hold off a bit longer._ 

Mind you, the deciding factor will be this damn emergency Budget in a few weeks.

Forgive the waffle.....


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## Bubbles34 (10 Mar 2009)

I have the strong feeling that not only are holding people off bookings until later - I rather think that the majority won't go at all this year. At least that's the case with many people i know


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## moondance (10 Mar 2009)

Slightly off topic but just wanted to comment that it's still near impossible to get accommodation in Galway for the Thursday (ladies day) of race week! If anyone knows any good deals there, please let me know!!!


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## samanthajane (10 Mar 2009)

cant help you there sorry moondance. But if you post a new thread lots more people will see it and your'll come across someone that might know of somewhere you can stay. Hope you find somewhere.......have fun at the races!!!


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## lou2 (11 Mar 2009)

There are some great deals out there at the moment if you're prepared to shop around a little. I got a lovely 3 bedroom villa in Lanzarote with it's own private pool for 600 euro with an English company. Got flights to Lanzarote with Aer Lingus for 200 euro. There are 4 of us going so the holiday is costing 350 apiece. Great value and a fab looking villa near the old town.


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## Statler (11 Mar 2009)

Just to give some figures from Europe’s 2 largest tour operators, which seem to back up a lot of what oldnick had to say about slower bookings and capacity cuts:

Thomas Cook Group plc (Thomas Cook, Direct Holidays, Panorama etc.) issued a trading statement on 12th February. At that point average selling prices for their UK segment (which includes Ireland) for Summer 2009 were 9% higher than Summer 2008. They had reduced capacity by 11%, Cumulative bookings were down 11% (but only down 6% in the 4 weeks before the statement). They had sold 43% of capacity and had 10% less to sell than last year.

TUI Travel plc (First Choice, Falcon, JWT, American Holidays, Crystal etc.) issued a statement on 5th February. Again for Summer 2009 in the UK & Ireland, they saw bookings increase in the 4 weeks before the statement. Average selling prices were up 11%, capacity had been reduced by 17% and they had sold 31% of capacity (2% lower then 2008). They also stated that 80% of bed capacity was uncommitted and 30% of flying was to be undertaken by third parties, giving room for further capacity reductions.

Obviously both companies have a strong interest in talking up prices/ the industry as a whole and the figures cover both the UK (where capacity has already reduced by 25% over the last 2 years) and Ireland (I think capacity has gone in the opposite direction over the same period), but it gives an indication of where they see the market and how they intend to operate if conditions permit.


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## fitzg (11 Mar 2009)

That villa sounds lovely, Lou2.  Can you pm me the details?

I am thinking of going to Lanzarote with 3 others in May and we're looking at accommodation options at the moment.


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## samanthajane (11 Mar 2009)

i agree the price is good, ( when are you going ) not sure i like the idea of being stuck around a private pool with just the ex and the 2 kids........but if it means i'll get away, i have my ipod to listen to and glue them into my ears.

Can you tell us the company you booked with.


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## lou2 (11 Mar 2009)

Yeah I booked with ocean club holidays. If you google them you'll get the address. I'm going at the end of this month but I see they have further offers on their website for later in the year. It might be a bit dull if you are going with an ex and also if you are going with kids as they obviously won't have other kids to play with by the pool and you won't have any other adult company! I am purely going to veg out with a book/ipod by the pool...just looking for relaxation for this holiday, not entertainment!


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## samanthajane (11 Mar 2009)

dull!!!!! it will be bloody painful going with the ex and having only him as company lol but we do it for the kids not for us. Last year was great we met up with a few other couples that had teenagers is was brilliant, they loved my kids ( only had 2 weeks to put up with them lol ) and would regulary keep them entertained or take them to the beach. The guys went of to explore ( meaning they went on a pub crawl ) and us girls sat around the pool or went shopping.....i loved it. 

This is the only thing that is really putting me off getting a private apartment, i love just relaxing by the pool read a book and have a bit of gossip, and doing nothing apart from the odd boat trip, but if it is my last possible option i will do it. 

I'll check into that company see what else is around the area... nothing stopping us getting the private apartment and just going to another complex where more people are, dont it before and they didn't mind.


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## oldnick (11 Mar 2009)

statler -you seem to know much about the travel business. Am impressed. What the two giants -Cook/TUI -didnt say when they mentioned capacity filled so far is that the prices of seats sold were even lower than previous year. So, revenue-wise, i reckon they're doing far worse than their statements indicate. And in the last month sales have dived even further.
However, these are giant companies and will survive in UK and Ireland.

I wonder however about any tour operator in ireland that is owned by private individuals, has its own shops on which it pays high rents, is cutting staff-hours/pay, has cancelled much of its programme and is slashing its prices for holidays in next few weeks.
( Fortunately for the Irish public any tour operator travel agent licensed here is fully bonded and every cent spent is refunded by the government.)


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## lou2 (29 Mar 2009)

Just thought i'd post an update on the Villa option i mentioned in this post. Got back last night from the Villa in Lanzarote and I have to say I will never again book a standard package holiday after trying the Villa option. The Villa was absolutely fantastic. So clean, spacious, quiet (but only 10 mins walk from centre of everything). Very reasonable. There seem to be some great deals out there if you shop around and bargain with the owners.


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