Newquay Airport closed for 3 weeks

Due to handover issues the airport is going to be closed for 3 weeks. This is a real shame and could affect last minute pre-Xmas breaks.

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News from TUI

TUI have announced good profits for 2008.

They've also cut overseas capacity for summer 2009 by 16% and suggest prices will be 10% higher.

Overall they assess that UK outbound capacity (eg the number of overseas holidays available to UK people) will be down 30% next summer, due to cuts at other providers and the failure of XL.

Again, another indication from a major supplier that overseas holidays will be expensive next year, and the UK relatively better value.

Click here

and here

Beach operators have hard year

More coverage of the SW Tourism 'How's Business' survey.

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Overseas capacity cuts will keep prices up in 2009

Thomas Cook are predicting 12% less holidays available for summer 2009, and price rises of 6-7%. Combined with a weak pound making overseas spending expensive it could have a good effect on consumer's in terms of whether to holiday home or abroad. However, there is likely to still be lots of capacity outside of the peak season to keep prices down in key months.

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SW Tourism How's Business Survey

A couple of pieces on the "How's Business" survey undertaken by SW Tourism. Generally the view is:

• 30-40% are up a bit
• 30-40% are down a bit

So overall it looks about the same but people are probably putting a bit of a positive spin on things so the real figure is probably a bit down on 07.

Read articles:

This is South Devon article

SW Tourism Blog

Self catering visitor numbers for 2009

What will demand be like for UK self catering holidays next year? There are a number of factors in play and the overall position will be driven by a combination of them.

Factors driving demand up

• Less money in people's pockets leading to downtrading from hotels to self catering
• Airline capacity is likely to fall next year as carriers merge or close - read Times article - leading to increased cost of overseas holidays
• Green concerns
• People choosing to have a number of close at home short breaks over extended holidays
• Weak pound making UK more attractive to overseas guests
• Weak pound making overseas holidays more expensive to UK travellers
  

Factors driving demand down

• Less money in people's pockets leading to downtrading from self catering to camping
• Credit crunch leading to holidays being cancelled altogether
• Flight costs making travel to UK more expensive for overseas guests
  
• The weather over the last 2 years

The outcome is hard to predict. If I were to have a bet I would say that, if the weather is good, demand will be up slightly overall. If the weather is the same as this year then visitor numbers will probably hold at this year's levels, which for many operators has been slightly down on 2007.

St Ives and search volumes

We have just taken on some self catering properties in St Ives.

St Ives is a lovely spot and I would expect demand for holidays there to remain pretty bouyant, even through hard times. So far this year search volumes have remained fairly in line with 2007, as shown by the google data below for searches on 'st ives holiday', though you can see that searches in January were down.

However, January was down on all the main UK holiday searches, such as 'cornwall holiday':

Demand for holidays, as measured by search volume on key terms, has been slightly down year on year. If you are investing then look for popular places such as St Ives that should remain relatively strong for demand.