Posts Tagged "recession and tourism"

Crisis…. what crisis?

By tjolley on Jun 25, 2009 in Tonyversity View | 0 comments

Several things strike me the moment anyone talks about ‘the crisis’ or ‘La Crise’: things seem to be going on to all intents and purposes pretty ‘normally’ outside the office window the irresistible urge to say ‘Crisis?  What crisis?‘ after the title of a famous 1975 Supertramp album (Not that I can remember anything about the album, bar Roger Hodgson’s rather squeaky voice and his sneakily simple piano melodies that go round and round in your head whether you like it or not). with remarkable prescience, Captain Edmund Blackadder (with no little help from Messrs. Rowan Atkinson, Ben Elton and Richard Curtis) got it about right in the trenches in 1915 when he put it most elegantly that:  “This is a crisis, a large crisis. In fact, if you’ve got a moment, it is a twelve-storey crisis with a magnificent entrance hall, carpeted throughout; twenty-four hour porterage and an enormous sign on the roof saying: ‘This is a Large Crisis’. And a large crisis requires a large plan. Get me a ruler, two pencils and a pair of underpants.” Blackadder Goes Forth. Final Episode: ‘Goodbyeeee‘. (1989) The Tourism industry is worried.  Already there are rumours of large airline collapses and suggestions and projections of $9bn losses for the airline industry worldwide this year (I personally think that will prove to be an under-estimate).   Ryanair posted a loss of some $239m in June.  If that is for a June-June period then it includes 4 or 5 months before the ‘Crisis’ fully hit (if to the normal April year end, then 6 or 7 months)- and that is one of Europe’s two most successful low-cost operators who have generally been outperforming the flag-carriers for a number of years.  Ryanair’s principal competitor, easyJet posted a 6 month loss of some £129.8m in April this year.  If the fastest-growing, most popular and lowest-cost operators are performing at this level…. what are we likely to see of the others? For years Tourism has been considerin g itself a ‘necessity’: in a busy world, where the pressure is mounting on employees in a globally competitive environment run by technologies with which we are not equipped to keep up, then ‘downtime’: holiday, clearly becomes precious.  The...