German travel agents are less confident about business prospects than for many years due to the current slump in bookings, according to an fvw survey.
Falling sales in recent months and the uncertain outlook for the next few months combined to drive down the monthly fvw ‘sales climate index’ for April by a dramatic 11.5 percentage points to 83 points.
This figure, continuing a downward trend in recent months, is the lowest level since the crisis year of 2009 when the same figure was recorded for April that year, and is a world away from the good figure of 103 points in April 2015.
The index, conducted in mid-April by consultants Dr Fried + Partner with a travel agency panel, is based on a mix of current sales trends and the short-term outlook. Both figures slumped to 83 points this month.
More than half of the survey respondents reported a drop in bookings in recent months and over one third described the sales situation as ‘bad’.
Looking ahead, only 11% believed that demand will improve in the next few months, nearly half expected it to remain unchanged but a high 40% predicted that demand would continue to fall.
In terms of financial results, just 5.6% predicted rising profits in the coming months while 42% expected them to continue falling.
The survey comes on the heels of poor sales figures for travel agents in March. The monthly representative survey by market researchers GfK found that package holiday revenues dropped by 11% due to a combination of a 7% drop in summer bookings and an even steeper decline for late winter sales.
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