This is really quite interesting. For those of us who watch trends these numbers are significant. It shows a robustness that belies some general trends that we have seen elsewhere.
Now a big caution - these numbers are from Pegasus GDS bookings which are largely corporate bookings. I would be very careful to take this as a general trend. And also I would say that the depression in 2009 was so sudden and deep that this represents a generalized recovery rather than a spike and a return to normal. There is still significant discounting out there.
We must also show that there was a benefit for the hotels that the airlines didn't share in - IE the effects of the Ash cloud covered a number of people who were stranded and needed to be accommodated while their planes were grounded.
May will be a tough one to call for the residual impact of the Ash Cloud, but my guess is that we will see a continued YoY improvement and definitely an improvement in yield for the airlines. For the hotels we should see a moderated growth - we are seeing 2010/2009 up over 10% on the year. We should see better than that for May hotels.
The Real Test will be in September when the first normalized return will be recognized in the USA market which has a significant bias for these numbers. I think it will be healthy. How healthy is up to a number of factors - for the summer the price of gas will be an impact - the constrained capacity of the airlines will not help matters.
Absent in this group is a major growth for Hawaii and Las Vegas.
Time to get Hawaii and Vegas planners into a room and thinking of big picture solutions.
Cheers
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