Lates drive strong start to peaks as cash flow fears wane, agents tell TTG

Many of the agents were continuing to see a strong lates market. Swords Travel managing director Mark Swords said: “The majority of our bookings are for the next three months. It’s interesting that people are wanting to book so late even though it’s quite pricey because demand’s so high and availability still quite low.

“Our two biggest booking periods at the moment are February half-term and April for Easter – people are just wanting to get away for winter.”

Petersfield’s Meon Valley Travel also reported strong lates enquiries, with overall bookings up between 10% to 20% over pre-Covid transactions (lower last week but strengthening this weekend onwards) and 50% of enquiries for travel in the next 12 weeks.

Delaney said Travel Circle was seeing less lates demand, though, with clients mainly booking summer “and people tending to go big”, although added the weekend just past had seen slightly lower-value holidays booked despite being very busy.

He added the family market wasn’t particularly buoyant at the moment, with more five-star properties booked for June, July and September. “The holidays we are having to discount are the family ones so the value for money’s going to be more important for the family market, whereas the couples market is just quite happy to get the quality and service they want," said Delaney.

“The majority of people coming in are saying actually their bank balance hasn’t really changed all that much. They’re not seeing a great deal of difference in their disposable income at the end of the month, and one thing they’re not going to give up is their holiday.”

Booking values up

Swords said their business was also seeing high-value enquiries and bookings. “We’ve tried to change our marketing towards something a bit different, so we’re getting tailor-made, we’re getting South America,” said Swords.

“There’s a bit more variety and stuff we can add value to as well rather than just trying to give a better price, which we can’t always do anyway.”

Meon Valley managing director James Beagrie added that average booking values were up 25%, mostly down to a higher ratio of mid- and long-haul, although Greece was still the big seller for families. 

“Conversion ratios are better than pre-Covid, and we are seeing more clients enquiring after multiple trips to secure the year’s holiday plans early rather than waiting for fear of prices go up,” he said.  

Ocky White also reported more longer-term enquiries, for example for New York in July 2024. White said he did think that after 18 months of no real booking pattern, “hopefully we’ll start to see familiar patterns”.

“From February last year, it was just crazy, it was constant,” he said. “Which was great, but I think we’ll start to see the first signs of peaks again, then a gradual drop-off, then a re-emergence of the lates market.”