At last, some joy for operators – but you’re having a laugh with those shop ideas: TravelMole Comment by Jeremy Skidmore

Whisper it quietly, but tour operators are heading for a good summer.

It’s an amazing statement in a year when many are reading the last rites for package holidays.

Bookings over the internet are rising more quickly in 2005 than previous years, there are 57 million no-frills airline seats on the market and everyone you speak to seems to be buying a Ryanair flight and dynamically packaging their own holidays.

How on earth can tour operators survive in such a climate?

The reason is because many have pulled hundreds of thousands of holidays out of Spain and one insider was telling me the other day that he reckoned MyTravel had chopped a million holidays in total.

As Thomas Cook UK chief Manny Fontenla-Novoa said yesterday, supply and demand are more closely matched than ever before. With a huge number of families still wanting the value and security of a package, that points to a pretty good peak season for operators.

June, as always, is poor. Look anywhere and there are bargains to be found. But everyone from specialists, such as Sunvil and Tapestry, to the mainstream and long haul operators are feeling pretty confident about the peak season. And that’s all that matters, as far as the bottom line is concerned.

Another bonus for the mainstream operators is the changing behaviour of consumers on the internet.

They’re becoming far more savvy and gravitating towards brands they know and trust. The old adage ˜no-one knows you’re a dog on the internet”, no longer applies. Holidaymakers are working out who the dogs are and avoiding them.

In future, consumers won’t necessarily be going for the cheapest option and are more likely to dynamically package through a Thomson or Thomas Cook website than through a company they’ve never heard of.

After years of trauma and goodness knows how many job losses, the big guys could be turning the corner.

But it’s not all good news, of course. There’s still the small matter of hundreds of high street shops that are woefully underused. People may be buying packages, but it’s increasingly from the comfort of their own home, via a computer or a call centre.

Thomson came up with the sensible plan of selling holiday homes through its travel agents. It’s a natural extension for a retailer and there were apparently over 100 enquiries on the first day. But despite the media hype, only a tiny fraction of people can afford to buy holiday homes abroad – certainly not enough to keep 750 shops afloat.

Meanwhile, Thomson is having a laugh with some of its other suggestions for items to sell through shops, such as sun cream and clothes.

Retailers have to offer something that is not currently available on the high street, such as holiday homes or even cars, as the canny businessman John Donnelly is doing.

Why would I buy suncream from Thomson when I can pick it up cheaper in the supermarket? As for clothes, there are hundreds of other, better outlets for these kind of goods. For a start, there’s simply no space for clothes in your average travel agent. They’d end up looking like charity shops with a couple of racks of garments. Travel agent clothes would also be deeply uncool.

It’s back to the drawing board if you want to keep shop staff from twiddling their thumbs all day.

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