Heidi Walker: Flight Centre General Manager on the reduction in holiday bookings during the school term

The Government crackdown on truancy could be causing a drop in families taking holidays during term time.  

Flight Centre data shows a 30% reduction in bookings during the school term compared to last year.  

At the same time, bookings during July's school holidays are up 10%. 

General Manager Heidi Walker told Mike Hosking that the old excuse of it being more expensive to travel in the holidays is unfortunately true. 

She said that prices rise due to supply and demand, as more people are wanting to travel to those family destinations during the school holidays. 

However, Walker said, booking as far in advance as you can is your best bet to get a good deal. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So how about this holiday bunking success? So data from
flight Center, more of us have booked to travel in
the school holes compared with last year, but there's been
a thirty percent drop in family bookings during term time.
So the government crackdown has it worked? General manager of
flight Center, Heidi Walkers with us Hiday Morning.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
How sure of you are the numbers? Is this just
a sort of a first blush? It's it seems like
it could be a thing.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
It's we're always looking at data. It does seem to
be a thing. Now obviously we'll continue to look at it.
That we've just been interested to see. Has the news
kind of changed the way that people are purchasing their
holidays and whether they're taking their children out of school
or not.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Because part of that, the ten percent up versus the
thirty percent down is there's something cost of living ish
in that as well. In other words, there aren't as
many people traveling.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
I have no doubt that the cost of living impacts
families holiday decisions. But what we're just trying to understand
is we've still got families traveling. When are they wanting
to travel, where are they wanting to travel too? And
you know, what we are seeing is that people are
being flexible with where they want to go so they
still can have those holidays as a family because it
creates memories. And you know that is something that film

(01:09):
not really important enoughter COVID.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
That thirty percent drop, is that mainly international or domestic
or both?

Speaker 2 (01:16):
That's mainly international. The domestic market, you know, that continues
to truck along. We don't have too much with that,
but that's the international market.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
And is it long haul international? It's the old look,
we're going all the way to Europe. Can we have
an extra week off school? Et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
At this stage, it looks like it's more out of
our short haul sort of destination, so our Australia and
our South paciffect, which is generally where a lot of
our families will go because of the length of time
that they can take away from you know, New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
And that whole excuse around. It's so expensive in the
school holidays and if I went a week earlier or
week after, it's so much cheaper. How true is that?

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Unfortunately it is true. It is true because it's supply
and demand, so we've got more people obviously wanting to
travel to those family destinations during the school holidays, so yes,
it is true, but booking as far in advance as
you can is your best bet to get a good deal.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
How many tickets have you sold to Europe for this
month and next so people can go luxury eating a
European summer.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Not as many as we would love to be selling that.
We just looked at some Java the other day and
there's still really good deals to be able to go
to Europe, obviously with the Olympics on and things like that,
but that hasn't been our core family sector, so we
don't have all of that data right now.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
What's core family Fiji Gold Coast, Queenstown, Yes.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Fiji Gold Coast, Cook Islands, Rawtung is also really popular.
And then after that we do see destinations like Bali
for example, or Hawaii start to become more popular.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
So why still the thing is a dump, isn't it?
I mean, last time I went it was such a
whole I wouldn't go back.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
It had great shopping and beautiful beaches, so lots of
people love it, but it is essentially.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Good only heidly nice to talk to your wy and
the Muffey Heidi Walker out a flight center. It's just
rarah Tong is not warm at this time of year.
I've got a person, my daughter's boyfriend's coming back from
rarah Tonga today and it's like twenty one to twenty
two degrees, which is nice. Rarah Tong is nice, don't
get me wrong, but it's it's it's not that warm.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
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