Bumps in the Road, Higher Spend Characterize First Six Months of 2022
经过Dori Saltzman/An Omicron surge may have put a damper on the start of 2022, but it didn’t last long. Bookings have been pouring in for most of the year, with travelers spending more per trip than they ever have before.
These were just some of the talking points discussed when Travel Market Report spoke with five host agency and franchise executives for a six-month check in looking backwards at how the first half of the year went, as well as what’s expected for the next half of the year.
在这篇文章中,我们查看了今年的前六个月。
Optimistic, Bumpy Start
Cruise Planners的创始人兼首席执行官Michelle Fee说:“我们都知道第一季度并没有像我们所有人想要的那样发生。”
She had hoped that January 1 would bring with it a magic bullet that would make all the ills of the previous two years vanish, she said.
“But COVID had another round left in store for us.”
Fee wasn’t the only one feeling optimistic at the start of the year.
“When we turned the year on January 1st, we were poised to be having a great year,” Nexion Travel Group president Jackie Friedman said.
Certares联合首席执行官杰夫·安德森(Jeff Anderson)很乐观,但他们说他们预计一年中的某个时候会有所放缓。
“我们已经预料到将会有一波杂志。我们不知道什么时候,但是我们很幸运地猜测这将在第一季度发生。”他告诉TMR。
“Most everyone was expecting that things would be closer to normal in January,” said Debbie Fiorino, COO of World Travel Holdings (the parent company of Dream Vacations and CruiseOne). “As we know that wasn’t the case. There were some bumps in the road. The Omicron variant obviously was a big one. The media coverage about rising COVID cases on cruise ships. The CDC’s announcement raising its COVID warning for cruise travel to the highest level. We were like, what is happening? But despite the headwinds, we were still very optimistic. We knew that they would pass.”
他们做到了。
“大约在今年第二季度,事情确实开始了。我们开始滚动,我不会说事情恢复正常 - 我什至不知道这意味着什么 - 但是我们的预订周非常好,”费说。
“People really did want to travel,” Friedman added. “It seems that every time we face a challenge, the [time to] recovery is shorter each time.”
高管们说,自2月和3月的业务开始飞行。
“Fortunately, since late February, this came to be strong enough to make up for how severe Omicron was,” Anderson said. “We sit here now, in the back half of the year, pretty happy with the way the first half turned out.”
Based on preliminary numbers, he said Certares will be slightly ahead of what they predicted for the first half of the year. “That always feels good,” he added.
“When I look at the first six months in terms of ales, our ARC sales, our air sales, are back at 2019 and above levels,” Friedman said.
One of the barometers Nexion tracks is their Circle of Excellence program, which is only open to advisors who reach a certain threshold of sales. “The measurement for that is August 1 to July 31 of the next year. Coming into the last month of that measurement period, we’re close to a record pace in terms of the numbers of advisors that hit that,” she said.
菲奥里诺说,世界旅行控股公司着眼于诸如过去七天,过去四个星期,过去十周等的测量值。到目前为止,所有这些测量都显示出朝着积极的方向发展。
一些柔软
It’s not all rose-colored out there, however. Some destinations and travel products continue to be soft.
“The situation in Ukraine caused some to change where they were traveling to,” Friedman said, emphasizing that people didn’t cancel, they simply moved away from Baltic ocean cruises and Danube river cruises to other destinations.
“I would say the first four and a half months went exceedingly well,” Kathryn Mazza-Burney, president of NEST, told TMR. “Advisors, although they are still extremely busy, were exceedingly busy over the last four and a half months. We were outpacing 2019. We have in the last month and a half seen a bit of a softening in certain areas.”
她特别指出当代巡游。
(在本系列的未来分期付款中,TMR将更多地了解下半年及以后的旅行顾问面临的逆风。
CDC内规则反转是游戏规则改变者
尽管对于大多数o顾问已经做得很好f the first half of 2022, things got even better when the CDC removed the pre-arrival COVID test for people coming into the United States.
弗里德曼告诉TMR:“我们努力了。”“那很大……当他们放松测试和隔离要求时,我们看到了一个非常不错的反弹,这是旅行的巨大障碍。”
安德森同意。他说:“我们开始看到旅行者的救济迹象,他们现在对冒险感到更自在。”“有很多压抑的需求,但是如果我被卡住会发生什么,也有压抑的焦虑。”
Fiorino echoed Friedman and Anderson. “People were worried about being quarantined in a foreign country,” she said, adding they saw a big uptick in bookings outside of the United States after the CDC rule change.
但这并不是唯一有帮助的发展。更多的孩子接种疫苗有助于增加家庭旅行。CDC移动邮轮从其最高的COVID警告级别上也有所帮助。
国家放宽旅行限制和政策也是如此。
“很多世界各国的删除barriers… going to these countries there was no barrier. When that happened, people started to want to travel again,” see Fee.
大量旅行促销也有帮助。
弗里德曼说:“许多供应商都有很棒的战术报价。”“恐惧有代价。”
菲奥里诺说,梦幻假期也参加了这一行动,他们提供了“春季ka-ching”促销活动,这是他们有史以来最长的促销活动,可用于邮轮,度假村和别墅度假。
Spend Is Up
增加预订并不是进步主持人和特许经营高管所看到的唯一迹象。
Mazza-Burney said they’re seeing more advisors return to their storefronts. NEST has also returned to full marketing, including direct mail.
更重要的是,人们花了很多时间。
“消费者的旅行支出绝对增加,”马扎·伯尼(Mazza-Burney)说。
“People want to go away and they’re spending more money,” echoed Fee. “The trips that people are buying are more expensive. I looked at our last couple weeks of booking and they are way up from 2019.”
人们不仅需要人们花费更多的需求。安德森说,通货膨胀在许多方面都将其视为逆风,而是逆风。人们想旅行,至少在今年的前六个月中,他们不会让更高的价格阻止他们。
“If you look at airline tickets, which we don’t sell a lot of, but airline tickets are way ahead of the normal inflation number. And we’re seeing that on the cruise side. We’re seeing that in our resort business… and remember, we’re making commission. We’re able to share in the upside of what’s happening with all that extra pricing based on higher demand.”