Last Minute Holidays

[Stiglet80]

Apologies if this has been asked before but I couldn't find anything in search.

Basically I want to do a last minute deal, but never done it before. I have the last two weeks of August off (yes I know probably the worst time) and nowhere booked, and no particular idea of where I want to go and whether it be in the UK or abroad.

So I figured I would wait to see what cash I gathered (already had one holiday this year so I blew my budget for that one, so another reason to attempt a cheap holiday and not the end of the world if I fail at this)

But everytime I use sites to look at late deals ie the one I just did was for holidays only up to eight weeks in advance, wether I searched for next week or when I want to leave seemed to come up just as expensive as if I booked it months ago.

Am I deluding myself thinking holiday companies want to flog any empty rooms cheaper or am I missing a trick to this?

Thanks in advance

[RVVUNM]

Travel zoo or Teletext, both on line.

[S2Mike]

Try really really last minute.
I went to Holiday Hypermarket in person, with suitcases packed in the boot of the car, found the best place for sun, beach and comfortable hotel that was leaving that same day! Negotiated a deal, like places available and the plane was sat on tarmac, well almost.
Changed the currency in the office, phoned family to let them know where we would be, drove to the airport, inside 8 hours I was on the beach.
This was a couple of years ago, but the principle should still work!
You may have to be a little flexible about choice of destination, but if you know the sort of thing you want, What the Hell!

[Stiglet80]

Will have a proper play with those website suggestions this evening but I like the idea of walking into an actual travel shop, bags packed. I really don’t mind where or even when as I have two weeks off and would settle for a weeks holiday and I kind of hoped it would be more unsual destinations like Croatia or Bulgeria.

[S2Mike]

We ended up in Lanzarote !

[Puggit]

S2Mike said:

Try really really last minute.
I went to Holiday Hypermarket in person, with suitcases packed in the boot of the car, found the best place for sun, beach and comfortable hotel that was leaving that same day! Negotiated a deal, like places available and the plane was sat on tarmac, well almost.
Changed the currency in the office, phoned family to let them know where we would be, drove to the airport, inside 8 hours I was on the beach.
This was a couple of years ago, but the principle should still work!
You may have to be a little flexible about choice of destination, but if you know the sort of thing you want, What the Hell!

Have done similar. Our villa company went bust overnight, we arrived at L***n airport at 5am to be told by the airline we wouldn't be allowed to board.

Went back to a pub near home that was serving breakfast, phoned a travel company and said we have our bags packed, we have a pocketful of pesetas (shows how long ago), get us a holiday... We ended up in a resort next door to the villa we'd planned in Menorca, for half the price - got our money back for the villa and enjoyed the holiday!

Only pain was flying out from L***n and back to Stansted.

[aclivity]

Stiglet80 said:

I like the idea of walking into an actual travel shop, bags packed.

Do that and you will pay very nearly full price - or get a rock bottom quality place. Two to three weeks before departure is what is called the "point of indifference" - which is when the lowest prices are usually put out. After that, people have set dates and want to go away, so they get charged more.

That said, holiday companies have invested a LOT of money in yield management software, and as a result there is much less distressed inventory around than 5 or 10 years ago.

[dazco]

aclivity said:

Do that and you will pay very nearly full price - or get a rock bottom quality place. Two to three weeks before departure is what is called the "point of indifference" - which is when the lowest prices are usually put out. After that, people have set dates and want to go away, so they get charged more.

That said, holiday companies have invested a LOT of money in yield management software, and as a result there is much less distressed inventory around than 5 or 10 years ago.

Do you work in the travel industry? Because I did a few years ago and it worked nothing like this, has it changed a lot?

Back then, a holiday was an item with a sell by date, just like many other things. If there was a lot left, they were cheap, if there was hardly any left they cost a lot more than brochure price.

I have sold named holidays for £39 and allocated on arrival 1A (Airtours) for £800. And it ONLY depended on supply and demand.

[Stiglet80]

Thanks for all your advise. I chickened out and booked a cottage in South Wales instead Was a bargain though at full price.

[aclivity]

dazco said:

Do you work in the travel industry?

I did, and I wrote a lot of the largest tour operator's pricing systems, based on some work that had been done by SDT (who defined the concept of "point of indifference" for holiday pricing).

You won't see much rock bottom priced stock from the major operators - although like all things, there is always an exception to the rule, and if you aren't fussy about quality and solvency of tour operator you will find deals ... perhaps I am too choosy on who I will travel with! From a travel agent perspective it may not be obvious though, as it was done very quietly and the first that they would have seen would have been deal prices unavailable on popular flights. Of course in the last couple of years the major tour operators have been cutting their stock levels to avoid having distressed inventory that they have to dump.

[johnfm]

aclivity said:

dazco said:

Do you work in the travel industry?

I did, and I wrote a lot of the largest tour operator's pricing systems, based on some work that had been done by SDT (who defined the concept of "point of indifference" for holiday pricing).

You won't see much rock bottom priced stock from the major operators - although like all things, there is always an exception to the rule, and if you aren't fussy about quality and solvency of tour operator you will find deals ... perhaps I am too choosy on who I will travel with! From a travel agent perspective it may not be obvious though, as it was done very quietly and the first that they would have seen would have been deal prices unavailable on popular flights. Of course in the last couple of years the major tour operators have been cutting their stock levels to avoid having distressed inventory that they have to dump.

This is why PH is such an interesting place - where else do you find access to the people who create the online pricing systems...

[frosted]

I wanted to go somewhere cheap, Majorca came by far the cheapest and Cyprus and Egypt some of the most expensive . In the end I had enough I got Cuba for 740pp 5 star all inclusive. Cyprus was only 100pp cheaper, cyprus is not worth that sort of money

[dazco]

aclivity said:

I did, and I wrote a lot of the largest tour operator's pricing systems, based on some work that had been done by SDT (who defined the concept of "point of indifference" for holiday pricing).

You won't see much rock bottom priced stock from the major operators - although like all things, there is always an exception to the rule, and if you aren't fussy about quality and solvency of tour operator you will find deals ... perhaps I am too choosy on who I will travel with! From a travel agent perspective it may not be obvious though, as it was done very quietly and the first that they would have seen would have been deal prices unavailable on popular flights. Of course in the last couple of years the major tour operators have been cutting their stock levels to avoid having distressed inventory that they have to dump.

But I still maintain that pricing, raising or lowering, is not done in some pre-ordained time which is around three weeks away from Date of Departure.
It must be done subject to demand, what would be the point of putting the price UP of some holidays you are having trouble shifting? Likewise, what is the point of giving the last holiday to Majorca for a pittance.

And all the computer programmes in the world cannot legislate on all the variables that will affect the price, or attractiveness, of a given holiday destination. The weather here, the exchange rates, the weather there, any bad publicity, etc etc all can alter the holidays sold and which holidays are sold.

As for worrying about the liquidity of your tour operator, what's all that about? Anyone can go bust but you will get brought back if you are with a tour operator. Personally I try and avoid the major players because they are very impersonal. That is just experience though, and not some outlandish choice that makes no sense,


Edit, I have checked for holidays leaving in the next few days and most of them are way below brochure price.

[aclivity]

I have tried to oversimplify the process, so sorry for any confusion. The 2-3 week point of indifference is not the only thing that drives the price calculations - that would be stupid, as you rightly point out. It is, however, part of the logic that is used in the price setting process; as prices are set mostly overnight and demand varies intra-day, there is a lot of work that goes on to determine what the expected demand is, what the perceived actual demand is and loads of other factors. Using this complex calculation a price can be determined that is supposed to balance the cost of operation against the walk-away price. It's perhaps the most complex thing I have ever worked on, and it uses a loosely integrated set of IT systems and human activities to work out the best price for each and every holiday.

Compared with other pricing models that were tried ("£5 less than competitor" was the worst, using online and - at one time - teletext scanners to determine what competitors were selling at and dropping the price for comparable product to £5 less; this was described internally as the "mutually assured destruction" approach, and thankfully was scrapped before deployment), using a statistical demand curve is about the best, except for when there are oddities thrown in - such as stupidly wet summers and global economic slowdowns!

So yes, you are not wrong, there is a lot of demand led pricing, but the clever stuff is in trying to influence demand rather than reacting to it. And the even more clever stuff is in yield management planning to ensure that distressed stock is less of an issue than it used to be. At one time in the early 90's it was not uncommon for one holiday company to discount up to £1 million of sales per day in peak season - they are a long way from that now.

[dazco]

Cheers for making it clearer. They do tend to put themselves at a lot less risk nowadays , but it was fun back in the day trying to outguess the market.