And our survey said...

What is it with the media and surveys? We've done our bit for surveys over the years but it always suprises us the way they are seized upon by the news-hungry press (it's not like they haven't got anything else to write about) and reported verbatim.

The headline piece in the latest bit of nonsense is that 10% of people surveyed could not identify a sheep. Now, we might have a little difficulty placing some of the countrysides more obscure inhabitants but a sheep? This is such a transparently obvious PR ruse to drum up publicity for Travelodge that it hard to read, let alone take seriously.

The results are (supposedly) as follows:

Over half of Brits polled think visiting the countryside is boring.

• 53% of adults said there was nothing to see or do in Britain’s countryside.
• 10% thought it was safe to eat all berries and fungus they found growing in the countryside.
• 32% had difficulty identifying a pheasant
• 22% could not identify a hare.
• 10% thought the hare was a deer

and wonderfully.

• 10% could not identify a sheep!
  

This reminds me of a company (that will remain nameless) that generated huge amounts of press coverage with the claim that over half of their survey participants could not distinguish between the Eifel Tower and the Blackpool Tower. The fact that this fact was made up over a liquid lunch did not worry the editors of numerous tabloids and broadsheets who plastered it all over their front pages. I'm not suggesting that the PR machine of Travelodge enjoyed the same liquid creativity but I would question those that report any old nonsense just becasue it makes good copy.

Read my lips

Trying to understand Peter Long's gobbledygook at TUI today.

Peter says “Pricing is strong as we continue to recover our cost input inflation, while consumer demand continues to improve despite the economic conditions as our consumers continue to seek differentiated experiences with trustworthy brands that provide excellent value for money.”

In actual fact TUI's bookings to non-euro zone areas are continuing to rise. Their bookings in the last month for Turkey are up by eight per cent, Egypt by 18% and all inclusive holidays by 13%.

So what he's really saying is this.

"We've managed to avoid discounting our holidays by reducing our capacity and exposure on some destinations and maintaining capacities in others. Despite significant rises in costs due to the strength of the euro, we decided not to pass these on to the consumer and taken some of this on the chin. Since the euro is so strong we have seen our customers move away from their traditional holiday desitinations and look for desitinations outside the eurozone. The major winners in this are Turkey and Egypt"

On a positive note, a statement from TUI on the quarterly results to December 31, 2008, said that for the summer there has been stronger consumer demand in the past four weeks.

Maybe, just maybe, people are becoming a little less pessimistic about the future.

Let's hope so.

Look west Mr Moragoda, not east.

We've been to Sri Lanka many times and worked with a number of resorts there, but we can't help feeling that the latest announcement by the Sri Lankan tourist office is clutching at straws.

It appears Sri Lanka has pinned its hopes on an influx of Chinese visitors to boost the island tourism industry, which has been badly hit by years of civil war and the global financial crisis.

Their minister of tourism Milinda Moragoda, has identified China as the main market for his country when he flew in to meet with Shao Qiwei, director of the China National Tourism Administration.

"China holds the key to our tourism development and further economic growth, particularly when the number of tourists from Europe and America is plunging during the financial crisis," he told China Daily.

We can't really see this happening. The Chinese market has long been seen as the Holy Tourism Grail, offering the lure of seemingly limitless tourists, keen to travel, spend their money and line our western pockets.

Anyone who has done business in China will know this is not the case and that this is not going to happen. The enormity of the Chinese market is such that only the smallest percentage will have the economic propensity to travel and they will be looking at London or Paris rather than Columbo.

Sri Lanka has a rich religious and cultural heritage, as well as long coastlines, attractive to Western Holiday makers rather than Chinese ones.

As Liu Qi, a tour planner from the Beijing Youth Travel Service, says. "Sri Lanka is a nice resort with its tropical weather and coasts. The country is showing its confidence in boosting tourism and I hope numbers increase as the political situation stabilizes."

In other words, don't hold your breath.

Western markets are where the potential lies and that's where the investment should be!

Positive Changes Required. Now.

Had a very good trip to the ITB in Berlin this week. Despite the ongoing financial crisis, there was a positive mood amongst most exhibitors, who were happy with the levels of business conducted at ITB.

According to a representative survey carried out by Fachhochschule Eberswalde during the fair, six out of ten exhibitors said the recession had had no impact on their business. Frankly, we don't beleive this! But credit to everyone for talking their business up instead of down!

Most exhibitors expected their customers travel patterns to change. Over half of the exhibitors expected tourists to take even shorter trips, 60 percent believed their local tourism would boom, and 68 percent expected demand for last-minute travel to increase.

None of this is really rocket science but it does show that people are looking and trends, changing and hoping to adapt for the future.

How each sector manages this change will be interesting, the advantage lies with the smaller hotel chains and tour operators who can make the changes very quickly.

Oh and by the way, if anyone needs help doing this, our phone number is 0044 7967 726606!

But what about Europe?

Good to see President Obama meeting with US travel executives to discuss the role that travel can play in strengthening the American economy.

In the meeting, industry leaders discussed the need to pass the Travel Promotion Act, the first-ever US promotion and communications campaign to attract millions of additional international visitors to the United States annually and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs. The US travel industry employs 7.7 million Americans and generates more than US$740 billion in spending annually and overseas visitors spend an average of US$4,000 per person, per visit.

It would be nice to see a similar initiative in Europe. During our work in the past with the ETOA, we have been frustrated in our attempts to have inbound travel recognised in such a way. The EU has no dedicated ministry looking after travel & tourism and as such any attempts to lobby for support is past from pillar-to-post until it is finally forgotten about!

The Czech Presidency continues until June this year and no doubt discussions will revolve around creating stimuli to the economies of Europe. Travel, leisure and hospitality is one of the largest employers in Europe, but with no voice to represent them, all appeal will fall on deaf ears.

The Russians are coming

We see the MITT, the Moscow International Travel & Tourism Exhibition kicks off in a week or so. The MITT is rated one of the top five travel exhibitions in the world and rightly so.

Russia has the ninth largest outbound market in the world and has an important role to play in the international tourism market. The country has a population of over 140 million and some of the wealthiest individuals!

Countries that have regularly enjoyed Russian tourists, such as Turkey and Egypt, have commented on the development and change of the average Russian visitor. As incomes have risen, the growing middle classes have shown their increasing propensity to travel and improved transport routes have helped make it more affordable.

Exhibitors at the show seem optimistic about the Russian market as few Russians refusing to cut holidays from their spending and are now looking for more economical holidays instead - but this doesn't mean spending less necessarily!

The MITT event boasts a visitor attendance of over 90,000 and 3,000 exhibiting companies from 80 countriesand will see Colombia, Japan, Costa Rica, and Panama exhibiting for the first time this year.for the first time this year.

A Pound for a Pee? Of course.

Ryanair's plans to ask passengers to pay £1 for using the toilet on board their flights, was another classic example of showmanship and clever marketing by Micheal O'Leary.

His comments, which were made on the BBC1's Breakfast programme, were covered extensively in all the papers and the debate was further fanned by the gasps of outrage from Which and the Air Transport Users Council.

There are two issues here; the first is that despite what many people may say or think about Mr O'Leary, he is a very bright man indeed! Ryanair is now the largest airline in Europe and it's success has been fuelled by Micheal O'Leary's single minded drive and particular business model.

For him the price is king. You will not find too many Ryanair seminars on the value of the brand or brand values. All that matters is price. And THAT is Ryanair's brand.

I'm sure Ryanair have no intention of proceeding with their £1 for a pee policy, but it's a great bit of PR and, in a circular sort of way, actually re-inforces the Ryanair brand which is - no frills and cheap. Queue here..!

The other issue, is strangely, that we should in actual fact not be surprised by any new idea suggested, no matter how crackpot they may seem today..who would have thought, ten years ago, that you could book and print your own boarding passes from your living room, that there would be no check in desks at the airport or that there would be (apparantly) 1 million seats for sale for just £2.00 each?

Maybe paying for a pee will not seem so crazy. After all Ryanair's ancillery sales accounted for 22% of its last quarter total sales!