This summer is set to see a major rebound in the number of people booking holidays abroad, after last year’s depressed holiday season.
John Felix, senior vice president, Emirates Holidays said that a number of factors, including the global recession, the fear of swine flu and the impact of Ramadan arriving earlier in the year had combined to stop people from booking holidays last summer, leading to a drop in business of around 23 percent.
“Last year we suffered an impact in the summer months,” said Felix. “We dropped off around 23 percent for the summer period which is our peak time.”
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Felix said the biggest impact on bookings came from fear of swine flu. “Summer was when the swine flu issue came up and that slowed bookings because people weren’t sure if they could travel or not. The impact of that in this part of the world was probably greatest, and then came the other factors.”
This year, Emirates Holidays is predicting a positive summer season again.
“This year I think all the implications are that business is normalising. Things are coming back to where they were and as we go into our summer the only thing we have to worry about is Ramadan coming in earlier, but we still have a full month after the schools shut and when Ramadan starts and we expect this period to be positive.”
He added: “We believe it’s going to be a good year - its going to definitely be a better year than last year."
“Everyone put in a lot of efforts last year. The hotels did their work in the markets, the airlines did their work in the markets, and the tour operators did their work to try to generate additional sales so that will pay off now.”
Felix said that people should not expect to find the discounted holiday packages seen in the market last year.
“From a business perspective I think rates will continue to normalise now. They dropped significantly in many places but most of the businesses cannot sustain that indefinitely - they have to bring it back. We will reflect that in the pricing of our packages.”
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