The effective ban on travel to Tunisia and flights to Sharm el Sheikh has taken out two competitively-priced destinations while other holiday hotspots such as Turkey are continuing to prove unattractive, meaning availability is becoming increasingly tight in favourites such as mainland Spain and the Canaries.
“Already we’re seeing challenges with availability, particularly looking at the families market, with a large percentage not wanting to go to Turkey, which has fantastic availability,” said Lee Hunt, managing director of Suffolk-based Deben Travel.
“Unfortunately, it’s somewhere that people have in their mind they don’t want to go to and because of that the Spanish prices have gone up and it is just pricing certain families out of the market.”
Carl Winn, travel operations manager at the Channel Islands Co-operative, which has branches on both Jersey and Guernsey, agreed and said his consultants had been trying to encourage customers to book early this year.
“I don’t think the lates market is like it was. It will be even more difficult this year because of supply and demand. A lot of hoteliers are running at high occupancy in places like the Balearics and the Canary Islands because they’re perceived to be safer destinations.”
In February, Abta warned holidaymakers to book early due to increased demand and competition for accommodation.
