The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Book now – and you might bag a bargain
Will coronavirus mean cheaper holidays this year? Quite possibly. Hugh Morris reports
One can be forgiven for assuming that the coronavirus has decimated demand for holidays, so prices are bound to fall. The reality, though, is not so clear-cut, with discounted deals for many destinations yet to appear and the price of some flights actually rising. However, the cost of travel – including flights, hotel accommodation and package holidays – will almost certainly change as coronavirus continues to spread.
WILL THERE BE MASS CANCELLATIONS?
Sonia Davies, the chief executive of leading tour operator Scott Dunn, thinks not, believing instead that the British public will continue to travel – albeit after spending more time finding a suitable insurance policy. “Most people will want to continue to take their holidays as planned, but will be better versed on the situation on the ground, their rights, and expected levels of support and advice from their travel company,” she said.
This tallies with insurer GoCompare reporting a 277 per cent rise in travel policy sales this week. Telegraph’s Travel’s Q&A (telegraph.co.uk/ tt-insurance-coronavirus) has seen huge search traffic; it suggests people intend to go abroad, but want to be better prepared. “We might also see more people booking through travel companies where they have greater protection,” Davies said.
WILL THERE BE BARGAINS ON PACKAGE HOLIDAYS?
“Tourism for many countries is a major part of the economy and companies will want to do all they can to encourage demand,” Davies said. “We work closely with our suppliers to arrange exclusive deals and it is likely there will be more offers to tempt people to book, and to book with confidence. We saw this happen following the very sad events in Sri
Lanka last year – once the situation stabilised and governments lifted their travel restrictions, there were some great offers and we saw our bookings to Sri Lanka bounce back quickly.”
Emma Grimster, of the comparison website TravelSupermarket, said comparing the cost of package holidays this year to last was tricky because bookings were hampered by Brexit uncertainty last summer, but prices for 2020 holidays are down four per cent, on average, compared with 2018.
“Prices for this spring/summer are broadly where we would expect them to be, but by analysing data we can see some of the biggest year-on-year price drops are for long-haul destinations such as Thailand, St Lucia, Mauritius, Barbados and the Maldives,” she said, adding that there were discounts of up to 33 per cent in Greece and 25 per cent in Thailand and St Lucia.
She said destinations that had seen the largest decreases in search volume included Venice and Tenerife (down 83 and 71 per cent compared to last year).
WILL FLIGHTS BE CHEAPER?
The outlook is not clear. According to Emma Wiseman, of Skyscanner, the flight comparison website, average seat prices are up year-on-year for February, with the summer recording similar increases. “We are in a dynamic situation right now,” she said.
Telegraph Travel asked Skyscanner to monitor the cost of flights to 10 destinations from the UK, for both February and June, to see whether ticket prices might fall. The analysis shows that for June, only the cost of travel to Milan, in northern Italy, where the Foreign Office has issued guidance, is down (by 12 per cent), while for February it was just Milan (18 per cent) and Hong Kong (six per cent).
“While some destinations might be experiencing price increases in the short term, looking further ahead to the key summer months prices remain static,” Wiseman said. “It’s too early to say if recent events are likely to drive any permanent changes to flight pricing.” This seems to be the case in Tenerife and Rome, where prices are up by 37 and 57 per cent respectively on last year.
Airlines including British Airways, easyJet and Ryanair have said services will be cut as they look to manage capacity as demand falls. This means a surplus quickly becomes a dearth, and the cost of a seat might rise steeply.
WILL HOTEL ROOMS BE CHEAPER?
Hotels and other accommodation providers cannot control their capacity in the same way airlines can, so they are more likely to slash rates when demand falls. In Japan, discounts of up to 25 per cent have been reported in Kyoto and Fukuoka; in Tokyo, average room rates are down 22 per cent.
Outside the main coronavirus hotspots it is too early to say what the effects will be, and rates are fluctuating. In the US, room rates rose 1.1 per cent year-on-year across the country for January, despite growing concern over coronavirus.
Booking Holdings, which owns, among others, Booking.com, has said it expects bookings to fall by up to 10 per cent in the first quarter of 2020, compared to last year. Given that bookings were up in January and flat in February, it suggests March has experienced a heavy slide, and there may well be bargains to be had for those looking to travel this month.