UK Ferry Tickets

The biggest restructure in the history of the travel industry has just been announced – and it’s all due to an increasing number of people booking their own trips over the Internet.

The four main package holiday operators are to merge into two companies.

For many years, TUI, First Choice, Thomas Cook and MyTravel have battled for package holiday bookings, by offering people ever bigger discounts to entice them away.

Despite this, holidaymakers have increasingly enjoyed buying flights and accommodation on the Internet from a variety of companies, including UKferrytickets.

In 2007, there is simply not enough demand for package holidays to sustain all the major operators. So the inevitable has happened and four is to become two.

TUI has just announced it will merge with First Choice and that follows Thomas Cook revealing it will do a deal with MyTravel.

It’s excellent news for the companies and their shareholders. They can cut costs, reduce the number of holidays on sale and therefore the necessity to offer perpetual discounts to encourage sales. Logic would say profits will rise.

I also think it’s good news for other operators, because they will have less competition when the supply of package holidays is reduced.

But is it a positive move for holidaymakers? I don’t think so. These companies are joining forces to make money, not give it away. The days of big discounts from these operators could be coming to an end.

As Andy Cooper, from the Federation of Tour Operators, which represents many of the big companies, said: “You have to look at the logic behind these deals, which is to control the number of holidays on sale.”

Fortunately, there is so much competition from Internet companies, that it shouldn’t be too difficult to find good value holidays in the future.

Guest Article by Jeremy Skidmore

Friday, March 30th, 2007