09/05/2003 00:00
TW
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By Humphrey Carter BRITISH summer holiday sales are stable, according to the vast majority of the UK's tour operators, but continuing instability in the international holiday markets, in particular Germany, has led many Majorcan hoteliers to start renegotiating their contracts with tour firms and seek accommodation guarantees. President of the Majorcan Hotel Federation, Antoni Fuster, said yesterday that hoteliers are taking necessary precautions in the event of tour firms failing to honour their summer season accommodation contracts. He said that hoteliers want to guard against either holiday companies failing to meet their client quotas or paying for contracted accommodation if not used. Hoteliers are asking tour operators to guarantee a determined number of clients at the end of the season and not abandon hotel beds before the end of the season. Some tour operators are also being asked to provide greater financial deposits. With the summer season officially underway, the biggest problem, and what has alarm bells ringing in Majorca, is that despite assurances over the winter from German tour firms that holidays would pick up, tour operators have failed to meet the forecast package holiday sales target and hoteliers are worried that tour operators may try to start slimlining their operations in Majorca and reducing capacity at this late stage. But, hoteliers know that the big tour operators still dictate the law, 95 per cent of tourists coming to Majorca come with a tour firm on a package holiday, so hoteliers need to fight their corner. Only this week, leading European tour operator TUI, which owns Thomson Holidays, announced that it is going to reduce capacity in the Balearics this summer because of 15 per cent drop in holiday sales caused by the Iraq War. TUI says that the crisis in Iraq has had a “strong adverse impact” on performance of its holiday divisions. MyTravel in the UK is having problems selling summer holidays again this year, it still has half a million packages to sell, some 40 per cent of its capacity, with trade down 3 per cent on last year on top of a ten per cent reduction in capacity. However, First Choice and Thomas Cook claim to be on par with last year, the latter having to put on extra planes to meet demand which is proving to be slightly higher than expected, in particular to the Balearics. Balearic Tourism Ministre Celesti Alomar is confident the British will compensate for another German slump.