posted by Travel Cat on Oct 1
Just a quick note to everyone in the UK to explain why the vacations this summer have been a bit pricey!
I was visiting my travel agent every week waiting for something to come up for around the £600 or less mark for a long-haul 2 week vacation - but nothing came. She thought they were holding off due to the bad weather this year - so she said come back after the August Bank Holiday. I did, but the prices were still higher than I wanted, and there weren’t many of them to chose from either.
I now know why.
Travel ‘giants’ Thomas Cook and TUI recently announced that they have been taking advantage of other travel companies going bust, by keeping their prices artificially high. They were using their well earned stability in the market to pick up all the travellers who still wanted that summer vacation, and were prepared to pay a little more than usual.
Apparently this has been very successful, what with less flights (Thomas Cook have nearly 25% less holidays on sale this season) and less companies offering them in the first place (with XL and Zoom going bust). Also, holiday selling prices have increased a staggering 18% in the past 7 weeks - according to the London Lite (29/09/08). No wonder I couldn’t find anything worth paying for.
So, it may be that cheap package holidays are becoming a thing of the past - for now.
However, I think that over the next year when things are predicted to get even tighter - for example my electricity bill has gone up another 30% this month - people will stop paying those prices. How many people even now really want to pay more that £600 each for 2 weeks in the sun?
The only people with that sort of money are all the London bankers - oh, hang on a minute - aren’t they all out of a job now!
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