17 December 2008

A Happy New Year For UK Tourism?

We were delighted to read that, “demand for UK domestic holidays is up due to the weak pound, according to Hoseasons” (Weak pound boosts domestic market by Bev Fearis); and according to TravelMole: “As the pound continues to struggle against the euro, the self catering operator says its bookings for UK breaks in 2009 are up 20%.”

The Chief Executive of Hoseasons Holidays, Richard Carrick, has revealed that over the last few months they have seen, “an increasing appetite for holidays in Britain, as a strong euro and a desire to manage household budgets has meant that more and more holidaymakers look to stay in the UK in 2009.” He went on to say that Hoseasons were “benefiting from people who know that by taking a self-catering holiday they can manage and control their holiday budgets more tightly."

If Carrick is correct, this could mean that money spent by holidaymakers will help the wider British economy. Consequently, the Government is being encouraged to back UK tourism as the plunging value of the pound makes Britain a more affordable holiday destination for foreign visitors – indeed, the Tourism Alliance has gone so far as to describe the sudden change in the country’s competitive position as something of a “potential silver lining to the cloud of recession” for British businesses. They could well be right as the fall in the value of the pound against the euro and the dollar has created what is widely being hailed as an “unparalleled opportunity” for the UK tourism industry.

Moving on to a completely different topic, we are delighted to reveal that there are now 432 members of our Brochure Marketing group on LinkedIn. If you would like to join, simply follow this link and click the ‘Join Group’ button.

LDS Tourism Services will be closing its offices from 24th December 2008 until 5th January 2009 – although staff will continue to service key display sites throughout the festive season. However, it will still be possible to contact us by leaving messages on this blog.

May we take this opportunity to wish all our readers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I notice VisitBritain are predicting a slight decline in overseas visitors to the UK in 2009.

Personally, I think it's going to be a bumper year for travel in the UK.

Let's hope so!

Paula Bardell-Hedley said...

Yes, indeed. Many thanks for your comment. :-)

gavelect said...

Promising news for hotelliers in Manchester. If these figuers are anything to go by 2010 will be a year to remember after all the doom and gloom of the last two years. They saw revenue per available room (revpar) soar by 17.6% in the week ending 26 December 2009, according to hospitality research company STR Global. Revpar grew to £25.09, compared with £21.33 in the equivalent week of 2008. Occupancy increased by 7.8 percentage points to 40.5% while average room rate declined by 5%, to £61.88. Manchester hotels outperformed the regional average, where revpar increased by 2.9% to £22.34 on the back of a 2.7 percentage point increase in occupancy (to 37.7%) and a 4.4% decline in average room rate, to £59.27. In the 28 days to 26 December, revpar in Manchester declined by 0.3% to £48.70 compared with a general decline across the provinces of 1.9%, to £38.08. Not a bad ending to a bleak year for all hotels Manchester.