2015 Travel Trends

A Guest Article by Ed Light, Head of Commercial at Luxury Travel Company Caribtours.co.uk

We are seeing a number of trends for 2015 in destination travel, ranging from when travellers are booking, up to where they are choosing to go on their trips. As Caribtours covers not only the Caribbean, but also the Indian Ocean and Arabia, we are able to look at new destination trends, across a number of tropical and sun-soaked locations and resorts.

Perhaps one of the most prominent trends we have recently found, is the return of the early booking market. We see this could be a sign of a renewed economic confidence, but also find that our clients have learnt the hard way in recent past high season periods. For example, finding their favourite hotel or room isn’t available, if they have left it too late in the day to book.

Early bookings for 2015 for us are currently up by 39%, versus the same time last year, which is testament to this trend. Plus, we have found that our typical lead time, from booking to the point of departure, has increased to over 140 days.

Where’s Hot…

On a destination level, as a company we see Dominican Republic, Antigua and Dubai growing significantly as holiday destinations in 2015.

With Punta Cana now having direct BA flights and more quality hotels than ever, such as Westin Punta Cana and Eden Roc at Cap Cana, we are expecting big growth in the Dominican Republic.

Similarly, an increase in seat capacity to Antigua has meant holiday sales for next year are already up by 41% year-on-year for us, to this destination.

And in Dubai there’s always something new happening. Whether it is new hotels, like the Four Seasons Jumeirah Beach, new shopping malls, or new attractions. We’ve added several more properties to our Dubai portfolio here at Caribtours, as a result. These range from great value four-star hotels such as Hilton Dubai The Walk, to five-star palatial resorts, like Jumeirah Zabeel Saray. Dubai is now our No.5 most-popular destination in the world, behind Barbados, Antigua, St Lucia and Mexico.

Founded 35 years ago, privately-owned luxury operator Caribtours is the UK travel industry’s leading Caribbean specialist, selling holidays through direct sales and a network of travel agents and homeworkers. Caribtours crafts tailor-made packages to the Caribbean, Mexico, USA, Indian Ocean and Arabia, detailed online and in four brochures; Indian Ocean & Arabia, Caribbean & Mexico, Love and the more affordable range, C by Caribtours. The firm creates bespoke travel itineraries with a rigorous attention to detail, across 16 different types of trip, including family, spa, private touring and responsible tourism. Caribtours’ expert holiday advisors pride themselves in offering exemplary client service throughout and possessing first-class resort and destination knowledge, achieved through regular familiarisation visits, product testing and 168 combined years’ luxury travel experience.

To book your trip to paradise visit Caribtours.co.uk