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By Humphrey Carter

PALMA
BRITAIN'S main tour operators believe that there will be a late surge in bookings of holidays for eurozone destinations like Spain and the Balearics.
The Chief Executive of the Thomas Cook group, Many Fontenla-Novoa was reported over the weekend as saying that he expects the sale of holidays to eurozone destinations to pick up with late bookers because the currently more popular, non eurozone destinations like Turkey and Egypt, are filling up and last minute holiday bookers may find themselves forced to opt for alternative destinations.

There was further good news for the Balearic travel industry over the weekend when it was revealed that the domestic British tourist industry appears to be getting greedy and many of the most popular destinations in the United Kingdom have put their peak summer prices up by a massive 65 percent, making it cheaper for families to come to Majorca where hoteliers, bars and restaurants have either frozen or dropped their prices.

What is more, the vast majority of Britons do not believe the forecasts of a lovely hot summer for Britain this year.
It appears that only three percent have total faith and 55 percent do not believe Met Office predictions of a hot summer will come true and know that if they are going to get guaranteed sun this summer, they are going to have to come abroad.

However, the big question is where is Britain going to be on holiday once the peak season arrives.
Figures released by the Office for National Statistics yesterday show that the number of foreign holidays taken by Britons fell by just six percent in the year ending in March.

The recession and the weak pound have been blamed but the Association of Travel Agents, Abta, admitted that “while not good”, the fall in holidays being taken by Britons could have been much worse. “Six percent is manageable. The credit crunch has been an issue for over a year now, so it was inevitable it would have an impact on people travelling abroad,” an Abta source said.

The majority of Britons are apparently continuing to travel and many, according to travel industry sources consulted by the Bulletin over the past few weeks, are determined to have their main summer holiday this year so things could yet swing in the Balearics' favour.