Airlines Curtail Discount Airfares

(Dive Travel Business News - May 2, 2011) - Rock-bottom deals are starting to get scarce, as airlines increase prices and cut capacity in response to increasing fuel costs. To offset surging fuel costs, airlines are reducing the number of available seats. As post-recession demand starts to grow the remaining seats will cost more.  "Seats will be more difficult to find, especially deeply discounted ones," said Ray Neidl, an industry analyst. Read the entire article here.

The tourism industry must adjust to deal with an increasing cost of fuel and to attract travelers who have the option of staying home if prices get too high, writes Peter Tarlow, president of Tourism and More. While this is not the time to panic, planning and implementing the right strategy can ease the effect of higher fuel costs. Most dive destinations are airline dependent: airline service cutbacks and flight frequency (often caused by high airplane fuel prices) will impact every aspect of the dive tourism industry.

Until now, tourism entities have mainly taken a reactive role in gas price issues. With gas pump price-shocks becoming more common, tourism and travel may need to become creative.  Higher fuel prices mean that the tourism industry needs to be thinking of its product as an integrated whole rather than as a series of independent components. Tarlow suggests holding a local summit meeting between hotels, restaurants, attractions, and even such secondary tourism components as police and city governments.

The additional cost of transportation means that visitors will be seeking other ways to economize. Visitors do not see their tourism experience separately as hotels, restaurants, transportation, and attractions, but rather as a unified experience. The tourism industry now needs to do the same. Each component needs to be working with the other sectors of the industry to find ways to compensate for higher fuel prices. If visitors do not see the total experience as worthwhile, then all of the tourism industry’s components will suffer.  Read the entire trade article here.

** This RSS Feed is brought to you by www.DiveTravelBusinessNews.com **