The main Cretan airport of Heraklion achieved double-digit growth in German holiday bookings last month achieving air superiority over airports in Spain and Turkey, but also Rhodes and Kos in Greece that saw their numbers weaken.
The Turkish Riviera gateway airport saw a 12% drop in bookings in August compared to 12 months previously in a sign of weaker demand for the country, according to monthly figures for the top ten destination airports from leading German holiday reservations provider Traveltainment.
Spanish destinations
The leading Spanish destination airports also saw decreases since Palma was down by 4% along with the main Canary Island airports of Fuerteventura and Las Palmas (both -6%), Tenerife South and Arrecife (both -13%).
Nevertheless, the trends for Greek destinations were mixed. Heraklion showed a strong 16% increase but Rhodes (-8%) and Kos (-14%) both suffered substantial falls.
Top ten list
Hurghada, the third ranking airport destination behind Antalya and Palma, achieved a solid 2% rise in German holiday bookings. On the other hand, the Bulgarian airport of Varna, which was ranked ninth in July with a dramatic 49% bookings increase that month, nor Tunisia’s Enfidha airport made the top ten list last month.
The combined general drop in German bookings to the ten largest destination airports reflects weakened holiday sales in August. Last-minute bookings fell sharply last month and summer bookings dropped by as much as 8.3%, according to the monthly travel agency survey by market researchers GfK.
Package holiday bookings
Traveltainment’s Bistro system is utilized by some 11,000 travel agencies in Germany to make package holiday bookings from 130 tour operators, while its Internet Booking Engine is operated by more than 350 online travel agents and portals.
Consequently, the company processes more than 250,000 holiday bookings per month, overall.
