We were delighted to host Advantage Travel Partnership CEO Julia Lo Bue-Said, for a TV interview with ITV News focusing on the wildfires across southern Europe and the impact it has on imminent travel, and what it may mean for travelling in the future.
In the interview, which aired on Tuesday, Julia spoke about the advantages (excuse the pun) of booking a package with a professional agent or tour operator and the added protection and rights that provides. Practical tips on what to do in destination if there’s a wildfire or natural disaster close by, and what regulatory hurdles there are when we naturally think we shouldn’t be travelling to a destination affected.
There was a specific line on insurance, and many policies not covering national disasters such as wildfires. Thus, needing to upgrade to more expensive policies if travelling to destinations where there is a specific risk of wildfires, like Spain, Italy or Greece.
It does also raise the question of whether we should be travelling to these destinations at all in the summer if the risk remains high. Many have been conditioned already to places where there are likely to be hurricanes (like the Caribbean in late summer for example), or typhoons. Should we be thinking the same about extreme heat and drought in southern Europe?
We’ve also seen the rivers in Europe dry up, with river cruises on the Danube becoming more and more difficult as we head through the summer with little rain in some of the most important regions.
Julia Lo-Bue Said, CEO Advantage Travel Partnership
She also touched on the UK Outbound Travel Group campaign to change school holiday terms to better reflect when and where people are travelling, allowing more opportunities through the year for families to have more-affordable holidays at alternative times.
It has been a long-standing problem that the way school terms are structured at the moment cause really high peaks on the holidays outside of the summer holidays. When everyone is trying to travel on the weekends of Easter, May or October half terms, the prices shoot up – whereas in the summer it can be often just the start of the holidays where that happens. It might make more sense to try and even out those peaks, to try and make it more affordable to travel outside the summer holidays (but still within school holidays), and whether we need to look at some of the models which seem to work on the continent.
Pretending to know what I’m doing!
Although not arranged, I was also interviewed giving my take on some of these issues as
an agent. However, as you have probably guessed, it didn’t make the final edit (although neither did 95% of what Julia talked about too!).
Not many travel agencies have the opportunity to be interviewed for the national news, and it’s great for our little office to have its spotlight in front of the nation. Hopefully that reflects what you know we stand for, as knowledgable experts in our field.
