Impact of the Euro in the Travel industry
By Darren Cronian on Thursday, February 21st, 2008

Chatting to colleagues today about the Euro currency I started to wonder what if we did at some point in the future change our currency to the Euro, what impact would this have on the travel industry? It sounds like a potential headache for travel companies.

Impact of the Euro in the Travel industry

As a traveller it’ll be better not to have to change the currency when going abroad, but then I believe that we should stay with the good old British pound. I wonder if we’ll see an increase in the price of holidays with the conversation between the two currencies – friends in Ireland reported a big increase in prices when they went from the Irish Punt to the Euro.

Thoughts appreciated.


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4 responses to “Impact of the Euro in the Travel industry”

Stephen Budd | 21 February, 2008 at 10:39 am

I think the answer to this is different depending on whether you are looking at short, medium or long term impacts. In the short term, I think it is very possible that the costs of living and business will rise in the UK which would feed through as supply-side costs and so make tourism in the UK more expensive.

In the longer term, it comes back (as it always will) to the UK’s cost in relation to other areas. If the Euro is weak against the Dollar, the US will find the UK a more attractive place to visit. I would assume that within the Eurozone there are also areas that are more wealthy than others where a similar situation would arise.

Bottom line: the UK would still need to offer value (not just at a monetary level) in order to continue to attract tourism.

I suspect that what would really transform the UK tourism industry, however, is for property to be cheaper - that way savings can either be passed on to the customer or used to reinvest in areas of the business where they aren’t at the moment. I think that’s probably a much larger cultural issue however!

Garri | 21 February, 2008 at 3:11 pm

Personally I feel Britain should’ve joined the Euro years ago, we would’ve come through the pain barrier by now. We never did get that referendum did we? And you don’t hear anything about it now. The issue got conveniently submerged by the war on terror, Iraq etc.

I don’t hold any sentimental value for the pound and the cost of living in this country has been rising anyway, with or without (as the case may be) the Euro.

MikeK | 23 February, 2008 at 1:16 pm

I hope that we never go to the Euro. How many times have we regretted signing some EU treaty or signed up to a EU state rule and fallen flat on our faces.

Louise Rowland | 1 May, 2008 at 10:48 am

I think we should join the Euro, cuz like well wen i well go on holiday all the time (that daddy pays for) this wud mean that i well dont have to change my money all the time enit. My bf pier used to take me but that is well ova nw so he dnt no more enit. Wud make my life well easier if we changed to the euro, i cud change my money myself if i well has my suzuki enit but i dont atm cuz daddy well aint retired yet, but wen i get my blue one i am well gettin racin stripes. JOIN THE EURO.

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