Where have all the last minute holiday deals gone?

With the school holidays at an end September is normally a great month for securing a last minute holiday deal in what is known in the trade as the ‘shoulder season’. Basically this is the period where the weather in most European destinations still makes them a desirable place to visit, all the big tour operators are still flying everywhere you can imagine, school holiday premium prices have gone away and most importantly for those of us without kids it’s finally a chance to go away without the fear of being stuck on a resort with hundreds of screaming kids.

Never one to miss an opportunity for a good deal both my partner and myself booked a week off in September months ago and patiently waited whilst everyone else seemed to go off on holiday smugly believing that they were paying way over the odds (although if you have kids arguably you have no alternative).

As our week off got closer we started scanning the ads in the papers, on websites and on teletext (yep they still do that in this internet age!). At first it was just a quick casual look through what was on offer, but in the days leading up to our holiday it reached a crescendo with every waking hour, outside of work of course, devoted to our search.

But the big savings that last minute bookings normally benefit from just didn’t exist. Plenty of companies were willing to knock 10% of the standard price, but you can usually get this any time of the year. So what happened?

Well it’s possible that so many people now wait for last minute deals that holiday companies have wised up to this and keep prices high. But it’s a competitive market so I find it unlikely this has had a huge effect. Another possible argument is that the poor weather during late August tempted many people to jet off for their sunshine fix.

But the most likely explanation is that tour operators slashed the supply of holidays for this summer as soon as they saw the recession coming and with no guarantee of when things would pick up they would have been reckless to secure flights and rooms that may never have been used. The recent feel good factor that seems to have spread across the UK was too late for holiday companies to react too, so when demand started to return they were left with their fixed supply of holidays to sell.

So given the lack of deals and the weak pound making everything overseas seem more expensive I’ve decided to pack the car and head off to Devon for a couple of days relaxation in a cottage there. And the weather forecast for this week, well it’s for this late Indian summer to continue whilst the Mediterranean is enjoying a couple of days rain.

It’s a funny old world.