Climbing temperatures at home in Ireland this week have seen people holding off on booking desperate last-minute holidays to popular European hotspots. However, changing booking patterns in a post-pandemic world mean late bookings have matched 2023 levels, travel industry experts said.
While the cost of holidays to many resorts remains high as the end of the summer season approaches, there is value to be found in last minute city breaks with Paris, in particular, proving to be surprisingly cheap as it suffers a post-Olympics hangover.
Chief executive of the Irish Travel Agents Association (ITAA) Clare Dunne said late summer bookers were “generally on a par with last year” and people remain “very price sensitive”.
She said that while members of the association were reporting good value to destinations in Greece, a last-minute surge had not materialised. “I think maybe in recent days with a bit of sun appearing in Ireland, people are weighing up the odds of spending the money or staying here and taking the chance that the sun will hang around for a while.”
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While there may be no desperation-fuelled surge, booking habits have changed in recent years, said Paul Hackett of online travel agency Click & Go.
“Last minute is very strong, it is a real pattern but I’m not sure if the strength of the last-minute bookings are even linked to the weather,” he said . “It’s more down to a change in how we book, with many people waiting until close to departure for multiple reasons, including their own finances and fears over potential cancellations. I still think there’s an anxiety when it comes to booking far in advance in the post-pandemic world.”
He also said people have waited for prices to drop “but for the most part they haven’t. We’re no longer in a charter-dominated market and while flights with Aer Lingus and Ryanair make up part of the cost, most of it is accommodation and broadly speaking they’ve kind of taken quite a bullish approach to pricing in the last two years”.
He said that from mid-September prices will have fallen considerably and there is “plenty of availability”.
However, Paris is where the best value is to be found over the next two weeks, he said. “I have never seen it as a leader price wise in our city programme but three nights with flights and hotel accommodation is coming in at less than €300. I think it’s because consumers have just assumed the Olympics are going on for the whole summer and that Paris is going to be too expensive as a result, but it hasn’t really worked that way so that is where the bargains are.”
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