For the average traveler who just wants to take a two-week vacation sometime during the year, there are all sorts of messes she can stumble into. We are now in a world of constant change, and to travel well requires the guidance of a full-time professional—one that can keep on top of the changes as they affect travel and inform clients about the many things that could ruin their vacations.
According to Paul Barry, CEO of Avanti Destinations, travelers booked farther ahead than in the past. It seemed that people had seen the warnings of a tough summer for travel coming and were booking early to be sure of getting space. It turned out to be a good idea and helped those travelers to avoid a lot of the possible problems.
As a provider of custom vacation packages for destinations in Europe, Latin America and Asia, Paul Barry has a good overview of the worldwide travel industry, especially for independent travelers. His work puts him in the middle of things, and he has to respond in real-time to the myriad changes that affect travel. That makes him a good source of market intelligence.
New Realities
Among the many new realities of travel is the fact that climate change is affecting travel seasons. As summer temperatures soar to unprecedented levels, shoulder-season travel is getting more and more attractive.
“You don’t want to go from 110 degrees in Phoenix to 110 degrees in Cairo,” Barry told me in a conversation last week. With unprecedented temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere this summer, North Africa and the Middle East are not in great demand. Yet, Barry is satisfied with Avanti’s long-term development of those destinations.
Add overcrowding, price and capacity considerations to the warming issue, and you have a bundle of reasons to choose shoulder season travel over summer when everyone and his mother is traveling.
This summer in Europe has been a difficult one, with demand in high gear, and various supply issues on the ground.
“There’s an immense amount of capacity issues on the ground,” he said. “It’s not just hotels and guides, but getting into attractions, trains. You can’t even find buses now. Cars and drivers are almost impossible to find. The Vatican, The Louvre, require pre-booking now. You don’t just turn up if you want the best experience.”
Some of the problems are just a result of demand outstripping supply, but there’s a new element to contend with new restrictions on tourism put in place by local governments.
“It’s a part of a trend of the locals, the people of the town or the area, trying to set parameters on tourism, trying to control it more, in places such as Amsterdam and Venice. We’re seeing it with airports, such as Schiphol and Heathrow, putting in some capacity restraints. Tourism is being restricted both through availability and through the requests of the people living in the destination. I think we’re going into a new era with tourism that is as sustainable for the locals as it is for the travelers.”
The shoulder season is also looking good from the standpoint of overtourism. The new restrictions on tourism in destinations will still be in place in the fall, but demand will be far less.
Spreading Demand
One way to manage overtourism is destination marketing organizations pushing for travelers to get beyond the tourist centers and visit the surrounding regions. However, that’s not an immediate solution to the overcrowding problems.
“People go through a life cycle of tourism,” said Barry. “When they first travel, they want to see all the major sites. Secondarily, they will go to the regions in the country. Italy’s a fantastic example of people going into the regions as well. But that takes many years to happen.”
Shifting Destination Demand
Now as the travel industry recovers from Covid, 90 percent of Avanti’s business is Europe. It’s a higher percentage than it was in pre-pandemic times when it was about 80 percent.
In Asia, it’s all about Japan now. Demand for Japan is so high that, as in Europe, governments are putting restrictions in place to manage the increased traffic and population.
Barry sees current demand in terms of where people have wanted to travel coming out of the pandemic. It seems as if travelers have started over, and they are starting where they started in the first place. This, for the majority of American travelers, is Europe. They are going places where they feel safe and comfortable. For a huge number of American travelers, the place that fills that bill is Europe.
“Japan has been the country where people want to go,” he said. “I feel that it’s an emotional thing. People feel that Japan has gotten over Covid. Everything there is quite orderly and under control, whereas in some of the emerging destinations people don’t have that secure feeling.”
Diversity of Demand
“I love those countries,” he said, “because there’s a sense of growth and emergence and energy, but I think some people see that vibrance as chaotic —and they maybe don’t want that in their first trip post-pandemic.”
Avanti started its Latin America business in 1990, nine years after it was founded in 1981 as a provider of independent packages in Europe. After building its business and its networks in the region over decades, this year has not been a good one for Latin American tourism.
“In Latin America the numbers not been very good,” he said. “The well-documented political problems in Peru have put people off.”
Avanti has been doing promotions for Panama and Ecuador in collaboration with those countries’ destination marketing organizations, but business is sluggish. Barry expects Latin America to rebound next year. “After the first wave of people rushing over to Europe, there’s going to be the recovery for 2024 of South America.”
The political turmoil in Peru sent ripples out and discouraged travelers who were just coming out of the pandemic. Peru has been Avanti’s top Latin American country for many years, as it is for many other tour operators. So, the drop in demand for Peru was a major blow to Avanti’s Latin American business.
It may take a while for that stigma to wear off. Though, it will probably have been pushed off media center stage by next summer—long enough that it won’t matter anymore.
Most people traveling now booked their packages months ago. Those who are booking now are looking at travel during the fall. With the savage summer heat, those months are looking better and better. The good news is that now is the time to book that shoulder season travel and leave summer woes behind.
Here are some other market trends observed by Barry.
- Travelers are pre-booking more services—making the value of the average booking is up by one-third.
- Travelers are staying longer; informal groups of family and friends are smaller than last year.
- Before the pandemic, it was common for clients to book multiple countries in one trip. Last year and, so far, this year the majority of bookings are for a single country.
- Italy is by far the company’s most frequently booked destination. This has always been the case with Avanti. Italy is followed by the UK, Greece and France, as single-country bookings.
David Cogswell is a freelance writer working remotely, from wherever he is at the moment. Born at the dead center of the United States during the last century, he has been incessantly moving and exploring for decades. His articles have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Fortune, Fox News, Luxury Travel Magazine, Travel Weekly, Travel Market Report, Travel Agent Magazine, TravelPulse.com, Quirkycruise.com, and other publications. He is the author of four books and a contributor to several others. He was last seen somewhere in the Northeast US.
