-Corfu, Mykonos and Santorini are at high levels of pre-bookings.
Loveholidays‘ bookings for Summer 2024 are increased as the UK‘ s third largest tour operator, in its renewal of ATOL licences around a month ago, surpassed 4 million seats for the first time. It will be recalled that in 2023 the big t.o expanded into Germany for the first time and handled more than 3 million customers.
More specifically, according to well-informed sources, Loveholidays, which is among other things the largest OTA in Ireland, aims to become the No. 1 holiday provider in Europe, with plans for immediate expansion into more European markets in the near future. As part of this strategy, it also expanded into the German market in 2023.
The commercial outlook for the British, Irish and German markets remains particularly positive for 2024, with the Greek islands continuing to sell very well from all the aforementioned markets. Pre-bookings for the upcoming tourist season are currently at +19% compared to the same period last year.
According to the same sources, the first destination in terms of booking volume is Rhodes, which recorded an increase of +14%. Crete follows with a small difference, but has an increase of +41%. The third largest destination for Loveholidays is Corfu, which is +8%. Rhodes and Crete are expected to break the 100,000 customer barrier each, for the first time in the company’s history.
Particularly good increases, albeit with significantly lower numbers, are recorded by Mykonos (+35%), Santorini (+29%) and Zakynthos (+23%).
It is worth noting that the extreme weather conditions of 2023, particularly in Rhodes and Skiathos (Thessaly), do not seem to have affected performance and sales, and there is a climate of strong optimism.
ATOL
Loveholidays has marked another huge leap of faith, adding more than a million passengers to its Atol at its March renewal. The OTA, licensed as We Love Holidays, is now licensed to carry just over four million passengers over the next 12 months, cementing its position as the UK’s largest OTA and the third largest Atol holder behind Jet2holidays and Tui.
Travel’s three main operators – Jet2holidays, Tui and easyJet holidays – are renewing their Atols in the autumn renewal at the end of September. Together, they represent just 15 million seats protected by Atol. Loveholidays, which has been operating for just a decade, accounted for 1.37 million sales protected by Atol before the Covid pandemic.
The most recent increase represents a nearly 200% increase over the pre-pandemic figure and a 39% increase over last year.
Loveholidays plans to move into long haul and city breaks, having focused on short haul beach holidays. It has previously ruled out working with the trade and earlier this year signed a partnership agreement with Ryanair, allowing Loveholidays customers to choose Ryanair flights.
