Value deals, low deposits and flexible payment plans will be key to securing forward sales this autumn as economic uncertainty continues to drive \u201cvery late\u201d bookings, according to bosses of leading travel firms.<\/p>\n
Tour operators and travel agents at Travel Weekly\u2019s Future of Travel Conference last week cited strong demand and bookings for winter and next summer,\u00a0but said \u201ctough\u201d summer trading looked set to continue.<\/p>\n
The bosses of Tui and easyJet holidays highlighted hesitancy among some consumers, particularly in the \u201cmiddle market\u201d, ahead of the government\u2019s Budget in November.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are facing economic headwinds,\u201d said Tui UK and Ireland managing director Neil Swanson. \u201cThe later Budget (on November 26) is critical. We all know that\u2019s breeding uncertainty.\u201d<\/p>\n
Swanson said traditional \u201cprice levers\u201d would be used to drive sales and called on the government to support businesses in the Budget.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need to know your costs aren\u2019t going to go up. Customers need to be confident booking well ahead and that\u2019s not quite there at the moment,\u201d he said, adding Tui was just over 30% sold for this winter, while its 2027 summer programme is due to go on sale next month.<\/p>\n
Customers who had booked already knew \u201cexactly what they wanted\u201d and were less price\u2011conscious, he added.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
EasyJet holidays chief executive Garry Wilson agreed, saying: \u201cThose with money are still spending. That middle market is just waiting and looking and holding off a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having the right messages in the market would be vital, he said, adding: \u201cThe big one is the value message. Trading will continue to be tough, but the demand is there if you get the price and product right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both companies stressed they had no plans to follow Jet2\u2019s decision to revise winter capacity and cited strong winter bookings, particularly for city breaks, Egypt and the Canaries.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d expect growth to continue,\u201d said Wilson, adding: \u201cThe really early market through agents is [also] still very strong so the popular hotels and destinations will still fill up quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Premier Travel managing director Paul Waters said the retailer\u2019s 2026 sales were already 11% up as staff focused on early sales and worked harder to offer more flexible or competitively priced options.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe target customers when they get back from their holiday,\u201d he said, noting: \u201cThey may want a monthly payment option, so we\u2019ve trained our staff to think a little differently.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hays Travel owner Dame Irene Hays revealed this summer had been \u201cmuch more difficult\u201d than in recent years but said a focus on long-haul and cruise sales was securing higher\u2011value forward business.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re incredibly well-sold for 2026 and 2027 for both cruise and long-haul and that\u2019s where we want to be,\u201d she said. \u201cThe forwards [sales] since we have pivoted to long-haul and cruise are much better.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dnata Travel Group UK chief executive Lesley Rollo said: \u201cWhere we have struggled most is our short-haul business. Travel Republic is traditionally more short-haul focused, but we have pivoted over the last few years to be much more of a long-haul OTA specialist and that continues to really grow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fred Olsen Cruise Lines chief executive Samantha Stimpson said 2026 customer numbers were 60% up year on year despite the operator launching its programmes later than competitors, adding: \u201cThe market has switched to be late and it has played in our favour.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Value deals, low deposits and flexible payment plans will be key to securing forward sales this autumn as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-145666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}