No post-Christmas booking surge despite claims

Sunday, 29 Dec, 2011 0

Agents are not seeing a post-Christmas booking surge despite claims that yesterday would be the busiest day of the year for holiday bookings.

Website Hotels.com predicted internet traffic would reach its peak last night, based on trends from previous years, as many returned from their first day back at work since Christmas.

A spokesman said: 'We've found that traffic to our website peaks between Christmas and New Year.

'It's a time when people get bored of playing with their new presents and their thoughts move to a 2012 getaway to beat the post-Christmas blues.”

But travel agents argue that although customers may be looking, they do not expect the peak booking period to come until the second week of January.

John Sullivan, head of commercial at Advantage Travel Centres said: “There is a lot of advertising which gets people looking and researching but the days of most bookings happening on 26th and 27th December have long gone.

“A lot will depend on who’s working inbetween Christmas and New Year which is fairly mixed from our membership.

“We see it being similar to last year with our turn of year being the back end of the second week in January.”

TUI, First Choice and Thomas Cook all said that it was too early to see how bookings had gone but that they would not expect a surge until the New Year.

Online searches and bookings are on the up due to multi-channel marketing where big companies use TV, radio and the internet to drive transaction volumes.

But although online purchases are breaking records in many retail sectors they are also pushing the prices down through aggressive discounting, according to independent retail experts.

* Have you had a surge of inquiries or are you attracting clients online? When do you see the peak booking period being?

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By Diane Evans

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Diane

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