9th August 2021
5 min. read
2271
There has been a surge of holiday bookings following the recent government announcement allowing double-vaccinated citizens to travel to Amber countries without having to self-isolate on their return.
This opens up a very unique opportunity to save A LOT of money when booking your holiday for 2022 & 2023, read on to find out how:
You see, since the announcement, demand for holidays have surged, and therefore so did the prices and they just keep going up. This was inevitable as the pricing follows a simple supply and demand structure.
Anyone who has been in the United Kingdom in the 14 day period prior to their intended arrival into the USA will be denied entry. Therefore, there are very few British tourists in the USA. In fact, there are very few foreign visitors travelling to the USA at all for leisure right now.
Due to this travel ban, British travellers are simply not booking holidays to the USA. Data shows that Brits who are booking holidays in 2022 and 2023 are opting for destinations on the UK green and amber list. So what can you do now?
Since nobody is booking holidays to the US, the prices are extremely low and therefore provides you with an opportunity to save lots of money if you are smart and act now.
The biggest foreign market for tourism in Florida is Canada with 3.5 million visitors per year. This is followed by the UK which sent over 1.5 million leisure travellers to the sunshine state in 2019. Currently, Canadians like the Brits are not allowed to travel to the USA for non-essential reasons. The consequence of this is a lot of empty hotels, resorts and theme parks which are almost entirely dependent on domestic travel. Fortunately for us, this has and will continue to have an impact on pricing.
As the most popular state in the USA for leisure travel from the UK, prices for Florida holidays attract a premium which is directly affected by demand. With no demand, the prices are low. In fact, prices for a Florida holiday in 2022 booked now are lower than the equivalent cost of a holiday to Florida booked in 2019 for travel in 2020 (although those that did book would not have been able to travel!). The savings are even greater for booking the 2023 Florida holidays.
During the G7 summit, Joe Biden announced the launch of a “transatlantic task force” with the role of working towards opening up leisure travel between the UK and the USA. Progress has been slow, and most industry experts believe it is unlikely that any formal announcement will be made before the end of the summer.
Inevitably, as soon as the announcement is made that allows British travellers to enter the USA, product suppliers will respond by raising prices. Herein lies the opportunity!
Airlines, hotels and other large travel organisations use a number of data statistics such as pricing models, data analytics, and algorithms to set pricing. Factors that are used to make the assessment include traffic volumes, occupancy levels, empty ratios and historic pricing. Traffic volumes and occupancy levels over the last 12 months have been abysmal with some airlines operating transatlantic flights with as little as many as 90% of the seats unoccupied. Some hotels that have opened up have been operating on as little as 20% occupancy.
This data means the algorithms are currently calculating much lower pricing for Florida holidays in 2022 and 2023. Of course, data analytics is a dynamic science, and the algorithms quickly respond to changing trends. So as soon as bookings start increasing, the yield management processes will recalculate prices which will inevitably go up.
The great thing about booking a package holiday as opposed to buying a flight is that you don’t have to pay much at all to secure the booking. But, as soon as you have booked, the price you will pay will be locked in. Most holidays can be secured with a small deposit with operators charging between £50-£125 per person. So even if your 2023 Florida holiday is going to cost £2,500 per person, you will only have to pay £50 now with the balance not due until 6-8 weeks before departure.
You could wait until 2023 to book your Florida holiday, but all that will happen is that the £2,500 holiday will go up to £3,500. For a family of 4 that would be an extra whopping £4,000.
Note to future readers: If the year is now 2023 and you have landed upon my article like an episode of Only Fools and Horses on UK Gold, I offer you my commiserations. You will have friends that booked a Florida holiday in 2021 and that saved a small fortune which will be hard for you to digest. But don’t despair- follow my articles moving forward, and you will be sure to have a better experience in the future!
Beckenham, Kent
Luxury Travel Gurus
+44 7590465628
jenny@luxurytravelgurus.co.uk
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