Posted by Adele Youngs

02 March 2015

Enough of Bad News!

Do you still watch the news on TV? I have to admit that, in the last year or so, I've given up.

It's not that I don't want to keep up with current affairs, it's just that I've had enough of rolling news coverage of disaster after disaster and how the world is going to end and we're all going to die...

Or the alternative, which appears to be live coverage of two llamas that recently escaped and ran around a city in Arizona for 30 minutes and took up four spots of the top 10 Twitter trending terms.

Image from BBC

Either way, I have slightly more important things to do with my time. Like compile a "rubbish-news-antidote" list for you of reasons why this is one of the best times to be working in the US and sending groups to international destinations.

1) At the time of writing, the USD$ is at a 7.5 year high against the EURO. This means that there are huge savings to be had for tours to the Eurozone in 2015. Groups that have perhaps been putting off travel may now find that their dollars stretch enough to make it worth their while looking at a last minute trip. 

2) Provisional figures for 2014 show that travel by US citizens to international destinations was up by around 7% over 2013, and Europe has a share of international outbound travel of 18% (source US Dept of Commerce). In September 2014, for example, 1.2 million US citizens travelled to Europe.

3) Gasoline is at a record low price, meaning bus travel in Europe is at more competitive rates than it's been for a long time. This also helps with the cost of travel.

4) Some countries in Europe have economic deflation, or very low inflation, meaning that costs are not going up, while the exchange rate is making the USD$ stretch further.

If you've got groups interested in travel in the 2nd half of 2015, but who haven't yet confirmed, you may want to encourage them to get deposits in now to lock in some of these amazing benefits.

2015 is the time to travel - let us know how we can help!