holidaydirectuk.com

People are prepared to cut back on drinking and eating out during the current financial turmoil in order to save up for their holiday, a new study shows.

A quarter say they are adapting their weekly expenditure and compromising on nights out in the short term, according to the poll of more than 1,500 Britons for lastminute.com.

Almost half (44%) are prepared to put up with a less comfortable travelling experience such as minimal legroom on budget airlines to esure they get away and more than a quarter are now more prepared to take inconvenient connecting flights to make their holiday affordable.

One in eight of parenst admit to taking their children out of school during term time to take advantage of cheaper holiday prices.

The study also found that a quarter of consumers view their holiday as more important than ever due to the credit crunch.

Thirty five per cent said that future holidays are helping to “motivate” them through the current tough times.

And 44% of people said the internet had made them more spontaneous with holiday bookings across all age groups, with 14% booking a holiday online within a week or less to departure.

A third believe they are more adventurous about where they go on holiday than they were a decade ago due to internet booking.

Meanwhile, almost a quarter (23%) say they are bored with the standard package holiday and look for more adventure in their holidays now.

Lastminute.com managing director John Bevan said the company’s use of dynamic packaging was enabling it to respond to demand for shorter duration breaks as people look for more affordable flights and accommodation options.

“Dynamic packaging gives the consumer flexibility so they can choose their length of stay. For example, travelling out on a Tuesday and returning on a Saturday would work out cheaper,” he said.

British Airways and Virgin Atlantic are dropping their fuel surcharges from midnight tonight.

Virgin announced its plans to reduce prices yesterday afternoon and BA followed suit this morning with exactly the same reductions.

Neither airline has lowered the surcharge for its premium customers.

From midnight, BA World Traveller passengers will pay £13 less on longer sectors and £10 less on shorter sectors.

World Traveller Plus passengers will pay £6.50 less on longer sectors and £5 on shorter sectors.

The changes will mean the surcharge for long haul flights of more than nine hours will drop by £13 per flight from £109 per flight to £96 per flight.

The surcharge for long haul flights of less than nine hours will drop by £10 per flight from £78 per flight to £68 per flight.

Meanwhile, Economy passengers with Virgin Atlantic will pay £10 less on shorter sectors and £13 less on longer sectors, while Premium Economy passengers will pay £5 less on shorter sectors and £6.50 less on longer sectors.

But for Upper Class passengers there is no reduction.

A spokesman for Virgin said: “Upper Class passengers pay more as their space and baggage allowances onboard are much greater.

“Also, Virgin Atlantic is still paying just under half of the rise in the cost of fuel since we introduced the charges initially (in 2004) and we are not passing these costs back to our passengers.”

For shorter sectors, the new fuel charges will be £68 for Economy and £83 for Premium Economy, but will remain at £98 for Upper Class.

On longer sectors - Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Beijing Tokyo, Shanghai, Sydney, Mauritius, Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Hong Kong - charges will be £96, £114.50 and £133 respectively.

Holiday Direct Travel Group are preparing to announce to members their uptake of TravelTek technology to allow in house bulk loading of HOD offers to Teletext, as well as to a new generation of TravelTek powered websites later in the year.

‘The Commercial Controller product allows us to keep tight control whilst uploading offers to Teletext and other platforms’ commented Cary Lam, Holiday Direct’s Managing Director.

‘Alongside the Titan system from TravelTek we have a solution for members to load the most complex hotel contracts, combine their prices with low cost flights and transfers and present these offers to the public via various online advertising outlets. We have complete control over all content showing to the public via the Titan system.’

‘With our steady increase in advertising space over the years, this will represent a great investment for us allowing our members instant access to the market. The advertising can be tailored to suit them and it will all be managed at head office.’

‘In the current financial climate it will be agents who are pro active, and that can afford to keep a high profile, that will be rewarded with the biggest benefit in the new year. We are confident of strong sales in 2009 and are doing all we can to guarantee that!’

The Commercial Controller / Titan platform will be available to Holiday Direct members in October 2008.

After long negotiations with Hotel Connect we are pleased to announce Hotel Connect
Are now offering:15% COMMISSION to Holiday direct members (on all bookings)

Holiday Direct are proud to work with Hotel Connect, one of the most forward thinking hotel suppliers in the industry.

Holiday Direct have teamed up with Gazetteers.com to bring our members free access to this well renowned travel information site.

This is continuing the training and development program overseen by Holiday Direct MD Cary Lam who said “it’s our duty to make sure Holiday Direct agents are the most knowledgeable and best informed in the industry, Gazetteers can certainly help s with that!”

gazetteers.com supplies the UK travel industry with unique and unbiased travel data.

Invaluable to travel agents and travellers alike, their data ranges from detailed country information such as health and visa requirements, to independently researched resort and accommodation reviews, and ‘who goes where’ guides of UK tour operators.

You will find it very useful if you are new to the industry to learn about resorts, you can type in the hotel name ( just the name e.g if looking for Hotel Don Pedro just enter Don Pedro) and it will show all hotels in the world that have that name and a description of them, as well as giving you hotel contact details, the tour operators that you can book them through and any agents advice form agents that have previously booked the hotel or stayed there themselves.

200 countries + 2500 resorts
Over 600 resorts featuring independent reviews
Over 10,000 properties with independent reviews
Special interest holidays + airports
Contact details of 400 tour operators
UK Tour office and embassy information
National airlines + 750 interactive maps.

The Holiday Direct Group who now boasts 331 members has acquired Holiday Mobiles for an undisclosed sum.

The group managing director Cary Lam says, the business fits in very well with the changes and future aspirations of our group. In the UK mobile users send 1.2 billion texts a week, and that doesn’t change when customers fly abroad.

The new service will allow holiday makers the opportunity to make and receive calls cheaper if not for free in over 144 countries and send texts for a fraction of the cost compared to using the their domestic contract mobile. We will be promoting the product which will include handsets from Nokia, Alcatel and Sagem to as many UK agents and tour operators as possible, who will benefit from an additional form of revenue in global communications, as well be able to communicate for free to their user base by texts and multimedia messaging.

Industry giant Amadeus has released the following poll which shows optimism about the short term affects on travel expenditure of the recent ‘credit crunch’. Travel agents expressing that the impact on their business is minimal:

Of the leisure agents polled by Amadeus:

·31% think that the credit crunch impacted on sales in March while 28.6% disagree
·Of the agents who have seen an impact, 30.4% said it was by between 10% and 19%
·However, 35.7%, the majority view, said they thought the outlook over the next three months was unchanged compared to the same period last year

Of the business agents polled:

·43.9% said the crunch had not affected March business
·Of the 19.5% of them who said sales had been hit, 31.3% said it was only by between 5% and 9%
·The majority, some 24.4%, foresaw no change in business in the next three months compared to last year

The CAA believes that many U.K companies are continuing to operate without adequate protection, despite its recent drive to deliver information to the travel industry about what constitutes a package holiday that must be ATOL protected:

“The letter we are sending today reminds other firms of the need to consider whether they are selling air packages and we are prepared to discuss their activities with them and give advice on ATOL requirements.”

“The guidance has now been in the public domain for almost four months and the CAA believes that the majority of travel businesses in the UK should have now considered whether the guidance on the definition of a package indicates they are selling air inclusive packages.”

“The CAA has always made it clear that it would first undertake a thorough education process, so that business had time to assess the guidance, but ultimately the CAA’s duty is to ensure that consumers receive the protection they are entitled to have by law, and consequently the CAA will take prosecution action if it considers that the ATOL Regulations are being breached.”