The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
From now on, will we travel more or less – or simply differently?
As uncertainty over long haul lingers, the focus is shifting closer to home – and it’s no bad thing, says Nick Trend
How will the pandemic change our holiday habits in the longer term? Will we travel less or more? Change our ways or revert to old habits? On Monday, the World Tourism Organisation made a prediction on the first point. It thinks that tourism numbers will be back to the “normal” levels of 2019 in 2023.
I think that’s on the optimistic side. We aren’t even sure we are out of the Covid woods yet. Dozens of countries remain out of bounds and it could be months before we will be able to travel to China, Australia, New Zealand and many other parts of the world. Even when countries reopen, are we really going to catch up all that ground so quickly? Life may feel more normal, but numbers will surely still be down.
It is long-haul holidays that have been hardest hit by the pandemic. And instead of banking on a quick return to how things used to be, some upmarket tour operators have been adapting their programmes to the new reality.
The trend for luxury holidays before Covid was to focus mostly on faraway destinations – both for beach and cultural trips. But this week, Kuoni – one of the leading long-haul operators – broadened its approach and launched an expanded programme in Europe to tempt those who might previously have looked further afield for holidays.
“We want to be as famous for luxury short haul as we are for long haul,” said its CEO, Derek Jones, flagging up a programme enhanced by 43 additional hotels in Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Croatia, Cyprus and Malta. The hotels being offered include classics, like the Grand Hotel Continental in Siena, but also new openings, such as Rocco Forte’s Villa Igiea in Palermo. Kuoni says it aims to add to the appeal by offering “coast, culture and countryside” itineraries in Europe. You stay in a top hotel in each destination and are whisked between them by private car.
Honeymoons and special-occasion trips are very important to the company (about 30 per cent of its bookings for 2022 are for honeymoons), and these new offerings are clearly aimed at those looking for an indulgent holiday at a time when long-haul travel risks being much more limited. You can see why it is keen to capture the market. Honeymoons can cost as much as a wedding, and couples are not holding back on expenditure. Despite or perhaps because of the pandemic, the average Kuoni honeymoon booking has risen from £7,985 in 2019 to £9,045 for 2022.
Meanwhile, Cox & Kings has also launched a new strand, which it calls Spotlight tours. It too is an operator well known for its long-haul programme, though with more of a cultural emphasis – taking people to destinations such as India or Egypt, which they are often visiting for the first time. By contrast, the Spotlight programme is designed to “explore lesser-visited facets of well-known destinations”, to appeal to those who are perhaps already familiar with a place, but might be tempted to explore it in more depth.
Hence the Spotlight on Malta trip, which includes visits to lesser-known towns such as Birgu and Senglea, as well as the capital, Valletta. Other tours aim to tempt travellers to more offbeat parts of popular countries – the Basque Country in Spain and the Veneto in Italy, say.
If the interim fallout from Covid is that we start to look at opportunities for interesting holidays closer to home, that’s not such a bad thing. The explosion in long-haul travel in recent years has been very exciting, opening up many more exotic destinations to holidaymakers. But it’s good to be reminded that there are plenty of riches on our European doorstep.