For the moment all good. The still strong desire to travel among the French is supporting booking levels for the next major holidays, both for train and plane.
But in the case of air and package travel, professionals are beginning to worry about the price curve.
On the air-only side, double-digit inflation doesn’t seem to want to weaken. In March, prices increased an additional 23.8% year-on-year in all destinations. Since the beginning of the year, the accumulated increase is 23.6%. Last year, reached 21.7%.
And the figures are even scarier for international flights with +40% in one year.
As a quite logical but still little-known consequence, the prices of combined trips (flight+hotel) are also experiencing a significant increase, of the order of 6.2% in one year.
The average price of a package trip scheduled between May and October is now 1,439 euros on average.
“Our clients have decided to travel after a difficult period, they wanted to get away and they do not hesitate to pay the price”, emphasizes René-Marc Chikli, president of the union of French tour operators (Seto).
Still, for the moment, tour operators are rubbing their hands together, the French taking no shortcuts. “We believe that we are going to find a volume of business from 2018-2019,” adds the manager quoted by AFP.
“The 2023 summer season looks positive”, according to Seto, with a 35% increase in bookings (with +39% in the medium haul and +43% in the long haul) and billing also 44 ,1%.
“Regarding the summer forecasts, we find the great destinations we knew before Covid: Greece and the Balearic Islands continue to lead, followed by Tunisia, which is gaining momentum, and (of) Morocco, which triples the forecast traffic compared to last summer”, continues René-Marc Chikli.
Source: BFM TV
