December news

We have made it to the end of 2022 (guess who got a new coat and scarf for Christmas) and 2023 looks like it will be a huge year.  There is clearly still a lack of staff out there but all agencies are settling down and coping with the staff that they have. Demand for Australia and New Zealand is still very high with a lack of flight seats and high rates being an issue along with high rates for ground products.

Quality of product is a concern for most agents as they have had problems with USA and Canada when they reopened.  The USA/Canada product issues were brought about by lack of staff for cleaning, service, etc and/or using vehicles, rooms, products that were not ready.  Concerns are the same for NZ/Australia as bed/vehicle numbers are low and demand is high which can lead to poor quality product delivery.

Staff numbers can be highlighted by Amazon who have always promised next day delivery for Prime customers, they have now dropped this to 48 hours, even Amazon literally can’t deliver their promises!  In the travel industry we can see this problem with Trailfinders who have arguably come out of Covid the best.  Their pre-Covid target was to get 98% of calls answered within 8 seconds where they are now happy with 8 mins and were over an hour a couple of months ago.

Good news from Trailfinders is that they report NZ up 8% up for 2022 over 2019 (a record breaking year) with more potential to grow as New Zealand was slower to open and pick up pace post covid than almost any other top selling destination. This is likely due to lack of flights/cost of flights, as well as availability of accommodation/car hire etc.