TORONTO SUN - Y2K Travel Business Crashes [travel agents face a financial disaster]

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LINK Friday, November 26, 1999 Y2K travel biz crashes
High prices fall as people opt to stay home By ROB GRANATSTEIN AND LAURA BOBAK, TORONTO SUN
Travel agents are praying procrastinators will save New Year's Eve from being a financial disaster. The expected demand for Year 2000 travel just hasn't materialized, worried travel officials said yesterday. As a result, tour companies have backed off their sky-high prices and begun offering New Year's deals to vacation destinations. Four-star resorts in the Dominican Republic have sliced their $2,599 prices to $1,829. Trips to all-inclusive resorts have seen the cost fall an average of $800. Some Caribbean cruises have chopped prices almost in half, from $2,700 to $1,399. New Year's Eve is usually one of the busiest times of the year, with rooms and trips hard to find, but this year almost everywhere has vacancies. "Sales are down significantly from last year," said Thomas Cook Travel spokesman Alex Pentland. "We're finding many people want to be at home with friends and family," she said. "The other factor that's unique this year is lots of people have to work or are on call New Year's Eve," said Pentland. With Y2K fears on the minds of big businesses, a number of Bay Street companies and Toronto Police aren't allowing their workers time off until later in the new year. Others, like the Bank of Montreal, are keeping a larger than usual staff in the city just in case. "We're hoping business will pick up," said Allison Eberle, a travel agent at Virgin Holidays and itravel2000. "Prices are falling," she said. "Phone me, look at the newspaper ads," Eberle said. [ENDS]

-- John Whitley (jwhitley@inforamp.net), November 27, 1999

Answers

bolding off.

-- Dan G (thepcguru@hotmail.com), November 27, 1999.

Ahhhh... takes me back to the good ol' days of 1997 and before. When 12/31/99 was touted as the party of the millennium, people were making travel plans way WAY in advance... and de Jager was almost a lone voice of doom.

Click your heels three times and say "There's no place like home... there's no place like home."

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), November 27, 1999.


We will probably never know how much of it was due to y2k and how much due to price gouging. You cant cut prices this late in the year and hope for people to come running, people just made up their mind to stay home and thats that.

-- hamster (hamster@mycage.com), November 27, 1999.

Price gouging is a charging $750 a night(requiring a 3 day stay) in a motel room that usually costs $25. Where? Las Vegas. I have heard that is about average for the new years weekend. And they wonder why nobody wants to party like its 1999..

-- y2k dave (xsdaa111@hotmail.com), November 27, 1999.

This is a statement by the herd that they will not travel. Regardless of what public bs they effuse, they privately believe air travel is unsafe. Now, I believe it is safe to assume that privately they are also taking money out of the banks. And privately they are also storing gasoline. This WILL have an economic impact on our economy. No avoiding it.

-- Gordon (g_gecko_69@hotmail.com), November 27, 1999.


The Y2K doomers assume that "the herd" is too stupid to wake up. Virtually everyone I have spoken with in the past few months is doing something in regards to Y2K, whether is stockpiling cash, food, water, etc. It's all people are talking about.

Don't assume everyone but Yourdonites has the inside track about Y2K. The mass panic you are waiting for probably won't happen. It's been silently going on for months.

-- (Polly@troll.com), November 27, 1999.


My sister, who thinks Y2K is total bunk, would normally fly to visit me for the holidays. This year she will not...just in case. It's weird that people who don't think Y2K could be serious enough to justify storing a few weeks worth of food and water will still hesitate about air travel. Especially when we've all been told so often that planes will not fall from the sky!

-- (RUOK@yesiam.com), November 27, 1999.

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