German tour operators are increasing special offers to stimulate demand after bookings dropped significantly in January, fvw reports.
Tourism sales were down by 13% last month as Germans held back with holiday bookings due to worries about the risk of terror attacks in destinations, the latest monthly travel agency sales survey by IT services company TATS showed. The slump left overall leisure travel sales, including advance bookings through to October 2016, down by 0.6%.
The only positive sign was a 2.8% rise in cruise bookings, which are now up by 11.8% for the tourism year as a whole. In revenue terms, cruise sales were 7.2% higher last month. Airline ticket sales dropped by 7%, and overall travel agency sales, covering all products, were 5.3% lower in January, according to the TATS figures.
The general demand shift from Eastern to Western Mediterranean destinations was underlined by figures from fast-growing online portal Check 24 which compared its sales last month to January 2015. The portal disclosed that bookings for Tunisia (-59%), Egypt (-54%) and Turkey (-30%) were all down dramatically with double-digit falls in average prices for Egypt (-16%) and Turkey (-11%). In contrast, Spain bookings increased by 19% despite a 4% average price rise, Bulgaria soared by 66% and bookings for Greece, Italy and Portugal also increased.
Early booking discounts for Egypt
FTI, which has already extended its early booking discounts for Egypt, is now offering more discounts to try to generate bookings for numerous destinations. The Munich-based tour operator is offering a ‘holiday cash’ rebate of up to €100 for bookings of selected hotels by February 29, covering trips from May 1 to October 31. The ‘FTI Family Bonus’ covers various hotels in Bulgaria, Greece, Morocco, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Tunisia and Turkey. “With the Family Bonus we are creating a further incentive for families to book their holidays early and profit from the best possible price,” commented Sven Schikarsksy, Managing Director Tour Operating Package. The group’s direct sales TV channel, Sonnenklar TV, is going even further and is currently giving away 5,000 Nile cruises.
Alltours currently has flat bookings for the summer after a satisfactory winter season but needs to generate more sales to reach its growth target of 1.8% for the full year. However, tourism director Markus Daldrup predicted that Turkey bookings will pick up once the political situation stabilises and after renegotiating lower hotel rates now expects a last-minute sales year for the destination driven by special offers. He also forecast another good year for Greece along with a strong Spain year.
Meanwhile, Egypt succeeded in welcoming more than one million German visitors in 2015 despite the slump in demand towards the end of the year. A total of 1.02 million Germans visited the country, which was 16.4% more than in 2014, according to Tamer Marzouk, head of the Egyptian tourist office in Berlin. In total, 9.3 million international tourists visited the country, a drop of 5.6% on the previous year.
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