[...] Flight Searches Down 42% from Last Year TravelRants.com posted some thoughts on the drop in flight searches in the UK. [...]

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Should we really be that surprised searches are down? With all the media doom and gloom going on, why would people want to spend money on flights…. not sure it helps when Thomas Cook launch an advertising campaign based around scaring customers, with their “your money is safe with us” campaign.
Also could footfall to travel agents be up? A post on my site shows that Thomson have targetted customer with discount coupons that only work in shop!

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Remember the context here…

1) http://tinyurl.com/86wvcn Christmas holiday working days affecting the results from Hitwise (which they’ve admitted to on our blog)

2) The economy

The two aspects above, alongside the cheap sales triggering direct bookings on LCCs as you said, I suspect are the reasons for the drop, rather than people turning toward package holidays.

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I wonder if a little of it is that people are just hanging fire on arranging holidays because of the volatility of the pound.

This past week has seen it recover a record amount against the euro so it is possible that people are maybe hanging fire for another couple of weeks.

Many economists believe the economy in mainland Europe is set for a real slowdown and it is just possible that demand for the pound will rise.

But then again I’m no Robert Peston!!!

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Funny that the Advantage, TUI and the Global Travel Group are reporting “healthy footfall” and that things generally are not nearly as bad as expected. Perhaps the High Street is enjoying sometthing of a revival. For most, if the annual holiday is to go ahead (and that is no forgone conclusion as Craig et alia say, one has to worry about the spending money as well as the holiday cost) then this represents one of the highest annual outlay any family will make – a family of four can easily spend over £3,000 on a simple two week in Benidorm job. With all past (and present) uncertainty, then people may find that additional security in going to a real human rather than the internet, is more, shall we say, comforting. They may prefer to see the bonding in more ways than just on a screen. High Street agents can discount (always have!) as much as any internet site (give or take).

As regards flights, at the end of the day, it does not matter if you book direct with an airline, on a third party website or via a shop – it is the keenest of price that is important. Expedia, for example, is not that cheap – often their “special fares” are simple airline offers (or even standard published fares) which can be got anywhere. On balance, they are no better or worse than the high street. The distinction is simple, any agent, irrespective of how or where they trade, either has access to CAT45 (”consolidated” aka cheap) ticket contracts or they don’t. Again, with simple point to point stuff, a website may be the preferred option but with any more complex itineraries a good high street agent is still a better option (mainly because no one has built a website that can do “wrinkles and work-arounds”).

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Apart from the obvious drop in the economy, falling £ versus €, job insecurity, house price falls etc etc….

XL gone, The big four now down to 2 and cutting as much capacity as they can – and pretty much out of the low cost scheduled flights market now.
Improved email and other marketing (so people aren’t searching, they are going direct to airline) and the fact that the remaining airlines are pretty well established ( so people know who flies where) probably means a lot less searches involved for the same amount of flights booked.

Or maybe everyone was just out at the Woolworths closing down sale?

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I’m sure it’s a variety of factors, one of which I’ve heard anecdotal evidence of – that many people are cashing in their miles or bonus points in order to be able to afford a holiday this year, and so are going directly to the airline website or booking over the phone.

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I am going to wait to see what deals we can get in February or March for our summer holiday so will not be searching for holidays or flights until then.

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Miss Expatria:

Good point, but I wonder if the cashing in miles element is far more appropriate for business travellers, rather than leisure travellers.

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On a side note it is interesting to see that air miles have an advertising campaign out at the moment which might see more leisure travellers using air miles in the future. I think the reason for this drop is that holidaymakers are waiting to see what deals they can get in the coming weeks as the tour operators and airlines start to panic.

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I agree with you Murray, footfall and bookings are above expected (taking that January is the busiest month anyway) more people want to book with us as we will tell them what is protected..Also we find a lot people are surprised we are the same price as the web a lot of times (Yes sometimes we are more…but also sometimes less).A lot quote the news of XL… customers booking with agents, your money safe, bookings on XL’s websites are not protected.

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…. wow! …. thanks for reminding me about XL – Guess who forgot to take the XL affiliate marketing bits off their website (er….. and a few Silverjet ones….)

The general theme from Travel Agents is that a) they expected this year to be bad b) Have been wholly surprised by the number of people/ bookings coming through their doors c) don’t know what to make of it and d) too disbelieving to trust that it can last.

I admit I am one who belongs in these categories – not too sure what to expect, frankly, and totally bemused by what is happening. I think (and it is a thought) that the theme (? sales pitch?) to look for is “value for money” – which is not the same as “cheap”.

People will pay; they do not weant to give up their holiday, but they want tangible security, which a high street, with real humans, may be what Jo Public seeks, Further, they want value for what they are going to spend, rather than just “cheapness”.

(Haven’t really developed this thought , yet.) Could be popular – Tunisia springs to mind, where you get a lot of hotel for your pound – possibly Turkey (also out of Euro-zone) also Tabor Heights (Egypt).

I believe countries in the Eurozone will suffer and over-priced ones (sorry, but Italy – places such as Venice, spring to mind) and/ or hotels where you pay for the name rather than real service (Amathus Beach, perhaps?) … so, important, perhaps, for a hotel to make sure that it’s profile on Trip advisor et alia, is good!

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Darren, for us up… for others that I spoken to up or the same as last year.

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There’s an interesting post in today’s HotelMarketing.com that contrasts the Hitwise data with Skyscanners’ internal research, which shows a year to year growth of 32%. Here’s the link – http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/skyscanner_sees_no_drop_in_online_flight_searches/

Interesting data, although I think neither report really paints an accurate picture. The Hitwise numbers are clearly skewed by seasonality and an absurd date range, yet one company’s growth clearly doesn’t reflect an entire industry.

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