It is part of the human condition to want to try and beat the system and the travel industry is no different in that respect. Every year, intending travellers tend to look into their respective crystal balls to find out when they should book their holiday arrangements. They reason (not unreasonably) that since commodities such as airline seats and hotel rooms are essentially perishable products, it makes more sense to leave making such arrangements until as late as possible, using the rationale that unsold product is likely to be sold off more cheaply the closer it gets to the date of departure/arrival.
Unfortunately, what most people tend to forget is that the movable feast in all of this is the overall capacity that is on the market and if demand exceeds supply in any given year, the available stock of airline seats (both scheduled and charter) and hotel rooms and apartments will sell off quickly — thus ensuring that maximum prices are maintained. The factors behind this supply and demand status quo vary from year to year. This year for example, the problem has been caused by recent events in Turkey and other Islamic countries such as Tunisia and Egypt displacing hundreds of thousands of tourists that would otherwise be going there to re-book for more traditional destinations such as Spain, Portugal, France, Italy etc. What Irish consumers also fail to consider is that we are mere minnows in international terms when it comes to the number f us that holiday abroad. When you consider that there are approximately 200 million Russians, 90 million Germans and 60 millions Brits all now looking to book this year’s holiday in just a handful of southern Mediterranean resort destinations, you quickly begin to see the scale of the problem.
The longer that intending holidaymakers procrastinate, the less that is going to be available to book and the higher that prices are going to rise so our suggestion is to book early and accept that you are going to pay more in 2016 than you did in 2015 or recent years. If you can’t find what you want at a price that you can afford then widen your search and perhaps even consider a totally different type of holiday this year. Cruising represents great value for money at any time and MSC in particular are ideally suited for families and have some great offers still available at the moment. Other options are to go west and let 2016 be the year that you experience North America!
Whatever you decide to do though — do it now!
