Musings on Holiday and Spring Break Travel
The next Holiday travel that you could be early on is Spring Break. I have enough winter/Christmas travel to tell you that booking the Holidays is looking rough for Europe. I have a Switzerland for new years that contacted me a month ago and we were lucky enough to find a home rental because every nice hotel in Zermatt was taken. Flights are looking very, very rough for Europe. Folks, If you need help with Europe between December 17th 2022 and January 8th, 2023 I’m going to be charging extra for it. It’s that rough.
But ntt everywhere. Most notably where it normally is the worst.
Australia and New Zealand are actually looking better for availability than one might expect. Post-pandemic Oz is pretty much open and New Zealand is opening. The airlines on these routes seem to be bent on revenue recovery as the fares are very high(which may have a lot to do with the nice availability!!!). I am seeing airfares on peak days for economy class at least 50% above what I have in the past. However, interestingly, I also found a lot of availability in top spots over new years such as by Darling Harbor, Queenstown, Sunshine Coast and Bay of Islands. I even found the Farm at Cape Kidnappers with some availability!!!!! (not on NYE itself) with only a 2 night minimum stay and in the past, that amazing spot has always had 3 night minimum stay for the holidays. I don’t know what to say about the flight prices, the seat maps don’t seem sold out enough to justify the prices which seem inflated, but normally, by this time of year, the holidays down under are a nonstarter. Right now it seems pretty doable, except for a brutal airfare price and… rough air ratings. This is winter down under and not peak season, but Air NZ, Qantas, Jetstar has some of the worst on time/cancellation ratings in July. I’d go to those spots, but I’d try hard to look at travel solutions that didn’t involve flying. I’m actually seeing some sales over the holidays in addition to just availability. There are some exceptions, some of the real powerhouses such as Lizard Island and Capella Lodge seem to be just as sold out as they normally are for the holidays by the previous August, but generally. If one were able to take a very long holiday to Australia and at least several days longer down to New Zealand. I’d say go for it and I’d be jealous too. The Key would be to add enough time to be able to make your way over land, and in Australia, that’s a long, damn time. Still… Knowing what the holidays are usually like down there, I find this proposition attractive. I love my daughter, but if she weren’t in elementary school I’d be looking at finding an angle to work from the Southern Hemisphere this year!
Speaking of seatmaps. Looking forward to spring break. Mexico demand seems down (again going by seat maps) but Costa Rica and Hawaii seem up, I'm wondering how much of Hawaii is the beginning of Asian tourists starting to return. I had some Hawaii this year, but TONS last year and I’ve heard from some hotelier contacts in Hawaii that foreign tourism is pretty huge this year to Hawaii. I’m also seeing some key Caribbean flights on top days start to go.
I almost didn’t look at flight prices. I can get a better idea of how flights are really selling by looking at seat maps and I’m glad I did because WOW! Price GOUGE Alert. $1400 for a nonstop to Los Cabos? That’s for a flight with less than 3% of its seats assigned. Liberia-Costa Rica $2640?!?! These are economy prices!! I simply loathe San Jose and especially Santa Maria Airport. But you could take your whole family with Copa Airlines to San Jose for less than one ticket on that very peak time! Heck you could also add the stop overs for free and check out some stuff in Panama. OMG. Somebody is going to call me and the conversation is going to start like this “I already booked my hotel for spring break and…” And I’m going to stop him right there. Folks. I just looked and the airfare isn’t egregious everywhere for spring break, but CHECK THE FLIGHTS FIRST. OMG. Some places it’s actually quite affordable, but for the ill-planned, there are going to be some ugly surprises.
