Winter sales ‘very encouraging’ say Club Med

Winter sales are set to counteract the decline caused by the turmoil in North Africa earlier in the year. Over the peak summer months of May, June and July, the total number of customer billings for destinations to Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco was down €20m year-on-year following the Arab Spring uprisings.

 

But the company’s Q3 figures indicate that winter 2011-2012 sales are looking up and ‘the over performance delivered during the winter should enable the group to offset the unfavourable impact of these events’.

 

A statement issued by the tour operator said: ‘Spurred by an assertive early booking policy, winter 2011-2012 sales are off to a very encouraging start.

 

‘Last year at the same date, these bookings represented one third of the total bookings for the winter 2010-2011 season.’

 

The resort operator also indicated that between 1 May – 31 July, business volume had increased by 1.8% year-on-year, and it had seen a ‘sharp increase’ in the number of 4 and 5-Trident customers.

 

Capacity was reduced by 3% in Q3, reflecting the closure of two villages in Tunisia in response to the fall-off in demand and the permanent closure of a 2-Trident village in Greece and a 3-Trident village in Italy as part of the upmarket strategy.

 

The reduction in capacity was reflected in a decrease in customer numbers by 3.3% to 331,000.

Adding an additional 26,000 customers at the most upmarket villages, the number of new 4 and 5 star customers rose by 15.3%.  

 

As at 10 September, total summer bookings were up 1.2%.