On the Beach predicts strong lates market

Chief executive Simon Cooper said Spain’s continued Covid restrictions had held back sales from the UK. 

“We’ve seen sluggish Spain sales, so they are behind. They have a lot of capacity and very competitive pricing. We have really strong supply of seats and beds. I think we will see strong availability in the lates market. If you have a little bit of flexibility I think you will find an immense range of very, very competitively priced products.”

On the Beach estimates seat supply to the eastern Mediterranean is up 19% compared to summer 2019, equating to up to one million extra seats. Airlines including Pegasus and Sun Express have increased capacity to Turkey, while the country’s Corendon Airlines has entered the UK market. Separately, Wizz Air has also increased capacity to Spain.

Cooper said the increase was “not unhelpful”. “All the airlines want to take more than their fair share of capacity. That capacity is skewed towards beach leisure.” 

Speaking as the OTA’s interim results were revealed, Cooper said On the Beach’s Classic Package Holidays brand, which permits agents to dynamically package, had recovered slower than its sister Classic Collection Holidays.

“It’s slightly different between the high street and online,” said Cooper. “Recovery has been slower; we didn’t see as much footfall and not all shops were open.”

Classic Package Holidays saw revenue of £2.8 million in the six months to 31 March and made a loss of £300,000. Classic Collection saw revenue of £13.2 million and a loss of £1.7 million.

Cooper said premium package sales were ahead of the value sector. He classed premium as “£750 versus £450, it’s premium mainstream in short-haul beach”.

He added OTB was now able to take advantage of Thomas Cook’s exit from the market in the higher value sector.

“We think repositioning, access to hotel inventory and maintaining reputation has helped bring what is essentially a new customer to On the Beach,” he said.