Travel in Budget

Maxine Clarke asked:


As the effects of escalating oil costs continue to affect industries across the board, the credit crunch looks set to hit the consumer hardest once again.

Ryanair are the latest company to reveal the extent of its financial hardships, with annual losses expected to approach GBP50 million. In fact, in the three months to the end of June, the carrier’s net profits had fallen a staggering 85% to just 21 million euro.

With the significant increases in the price of oil over the past few months – a figure which saw it reach a peak in mid-July of nearly $150 per barrel – an announcement such as this was somewhat expected; only the extent of the losses came as a surprise.

Following the announcement from Ryanair, shares in the other exponent of budget flight – easyJet – plunged 8%, while British Airways suffered a drop of 5% in value. Those to suffer the most from the decline in fortune, however, look certain to be those travellers looking to take advantage of the great-value flights on offer.

With a view to curb losses, it is inevitable that profits will require a substantial boost from the raising of ticket prices. So is it time for the average traveller wave goodbye to those 1p fares? And if so, what will the affect be on the travel industry?

Many elitists – not too mention tourist destinations – may well greet the news of a reduction in budget flights with glee: at last the beautiful cultured streets of Europe will be free from drunken stag weekenders and hen parties, while the golden beaches of the Costa Blanca will no longer be inhabited by lobster-like British bodies.

However, tourism remains the lifeblood of many a destination, and a significant drop in visitors may lead to a host of problems caused by depleted funds. As a consequence, the need to welcome those budget travellers far outweigh the wish to keep them out.

It seems almost certain that the days when flights are sold for a penny apiece are gone. So will the immediate problems being suffered by the likes of British Airways, easyJet and Ryanair prove long-standing, or is there a glint of optimism on the horizon?

Thanks to the realisation that the over-inflated oil costs are in part due to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) reticence to export oil at a reasonable rate, and in part due to greedy traders profiting on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYME), oil has begun what many hope to be a steady downturn. Should this be the case, it it plausible that the airline prices may decrease once the price of oil steadies.

In the meantime, however, it seems likely that the next 12 months at least can see potential travellers wave goodbye to their much anticipated holiday.



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Vineeth Purushothaman asked:


Even for the seasoned traveller, India has always been a hard country to negotiate, particularly when it came to budget travel. More like a lottery as far as getting accommodation right was concerned – you won occasionally but lost most of the time. Sometimes amazing value and at other times you’d get a complete wreck of a hotel room for an inflated price.

At the top end though, travellers usually had ample choice and could choose from the best luxury hotel brands. And whilst these hotels never came cheap, one usually got what one paid for.

But now, things look set to improve – with the fast growth in the tourism and hospitality sector, there are signs of rapid change and new hope for the budget traveller.

The Indian middle class has started travelling more – with more leisure time, a higher disposable income and globalisation all contributing. And they are no longer satisfied by generations of run down lodges and hotels which were hardly ever renovated, the unfortunate hallmark of Indian budget travel over the last many years.

The larger hotel companies were the first to recognise this requirement – Ginger, a TATA enterprise, has twelve hotels already with another 6 hotels coming up. They offer good value rooms with the latest technology including self check-in options. Some of the other new brands in this sector include Lemon Tree, Hometel & Premier Travel Inn.

Another company which introduced a unique new concept to India six months ago is HOME-LIKE HOTELS. The company which was launched in November 2007 works on identifying unique, independent, boutique properties which offer great value across the length and breadth of the country. Once identified and approved based on their criteria, the company then makes the selected hotels available as part of the HOME-LIKE collection.

This offers a clear win for the traveller as they avoid the uncertainty of booking through travel portals like yatra.com or travelguru.com which list every hotel without qualifying them under set criteria.

Currently the HOME-LIKE HOTELS collection features over forty carefully selected boutique hotels in over 25 destinations. They aim to have over 100 hotels available for travellers to book from, by the end of the year. More information on their hotels and destinations is available at www.homelikehotels.com

The key difference between HOME-LIKE HOTELS and the traditional model is the unique character of the individual hotels. They avoid some of the bland standard features that all chain hotels invariably have.

Welcome news indeed for the budget traveller – with the price range for most of these hotels ranging between 2000 and 5000 INR (approximately 25 to 60) a night, the choice for travellers looking for an authentic Indian experience has just gone up.



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