Nice to see you….to see you Nice!

Today Flybe announced that they would start operating weekly flights between Jersey and Nice on the French Riviera from 24th May. Great news for Jersey residents looking for a week in Provence or hoping to break the bank of Monte Carlo, but is this of benefit to Jersey’s visitor economy?

Deputy Alan Maclean welcomed the announcement today, suggesting that “This new route opens up a number of opportunities for inbound tourism…” Not sure that many Provençales will be jumping off their sun beds on the Med. coast to spend a week in the relatively chilly Gulf of St Malo, but we'll see.

Anyway – it gives me another option for my summer holiday this year. Return fares seem to start at around £100.00 – not bad for a direct route to the sun.

Jersey’s Competition Authority’s fine Thomsonfly. What message are we trying to send!?

It’s been a bit quiet on the blogging front for the past few weeks. But rather like London buses, you have nothing to write about for weeks and then 3 stories come along at once.

Firstly, there’s the mighty JCRA levying a crushing fine of, wait for it….. £10,000 on TUI (parent company of Thomsonfly) for failing to advise them back in September of their acquisition of First Choice. Apparently, because Thomsonfly were flying to the island, they should have advised the JCRA in order that they could assess the competitive effects of the acquisition.

Despite the fact that the JCRA has no power to order TUI not to proceed with the merger (as if that would make a difference!), they still decided to fine them for an administrative oversight. What sort of message does this send to other airlines or businesses we are desperately trying to attract to Jersey? I hope the £10k fine which is going to the States will be handed over to Jersey Airport to use for marketing activities.

The future's bright....the future's orange!

It's been widely anticipated and much hoped for, but today it's confirmed. Easyjet are to start flying to Jersey in 2008.

Easyjet is Europe's leading low-fares airline and along with Ryanair dominate the market. For almost a decade the island has been wishing that it could be in a position to attract one of the 'big two' to fly to the island. Now that wish has come true and from March next year the famous orange livery will be touching down in Jersey.

Flights from Liverpool, (which has not previously been served by a scheduled airline) commence in March and from London Luton a month later. The Luton route will be operated by an Airbus 319 (similar to that operated by BMI on Heathrow) and Liverpool by a 737-300. The combined capacity is huge - 200,000 extra seats in the first year. Given how successful Thomsonfly were on Luton, Easyjet should have no problems taking up where they left off, whilst Liverpool provides access to a whole new market in the North West and North Wales.

Not surprisingly Philip Ozouf, Alan Maclean & Julian Green are cock-a-hoop. Of course, attracting Easyjet will not have come cheap & more incentive deals will have been struck to secure the routes, but the airline would not have agreed to start flying to Jersey unless they believed there was a strong commercial case for doing so.

Right now the key to achieving continued growth in our industry is having as much access as possible. The arrival of Easyjet is a terrific fillip to us all.

'Green' is the word at Tourism Conference

On November 8th, the industry gathered once again to hear from the Jersey Tourism marketing team and others about the results of the 2007 campaign and the plans for 2008. It was a special day for this blog, as it was the same event last year that resulted in the first post.

Last year, I was eulogising over the performance of Sunara Spires of Jersey Tourism’s advertising agency, Communiqué. This year she was back again, but this time had a less prominent part to play. Needless to say, Simon le Huray and his colleagues had plenty to sing about – with an increase in visitors for the first time in over a decade. Although one swallow does not make a summer, they have every right to be pleased with this positive development.

However, whilst not ignoring the role of the TV campaign, we have to look elsewhere for the key reason for the increase. Step up to the plate, the star of this year’s conference – Jersey Airport's Director, Julian Green. Here is a man in charge of his brief, who understands that the current key driver behind the growth in visitors is the frequency and availability of flights to Jersey.

It’s a truism – if visitors cannot get here, they cannot stay here. Julian and his team managed to deliver more flights, from more airports than ever before and with low-cost availability in the market throughout the summer, we have finally been able to compete properly in the late market. So let’s recognise that fact and make sure that whilst these airlines exist, incentives continue to be available to encourage them to open new routes to Jersey.

From one ‘Green’ to another and a quick word of support for Andrea Nicholas of the Green Tourism Business Scheme who had the graveyard slot at the end of the conference. I hope that many businesses will become involved in this scheme. As The Independent travel editor, Simon Calder pointed out – Jersey was one of the first destinations to be awarded Green Destination status and we need to make sure we keep ahead of the pack, as the environment continues to become a bigger and bigger issue in the tourism industry.

Of course, these two Green's don't sit that comfortably together - aircraft are definitely not environmentally friendly. But, place Jersey into a global context, then flying here from the UK creates a much smaller carbon footprint than a holiday in Majorca, which creates 5 times as much CO2. To see how much CO2 is generated on a particular air route visit Terrapass.com.

Flybe takes a pop at Economic Development

An 8 page ‘Flybe - aren’t we wonderful’ supplement fell out of the Jersey Evening Post last night. Basically it’s an advertorial (I hate that word) supplement designed to inform us about all the new routes and destinations Flybe are serving and encourage us to fly with them more frequently.

But on the front page of the supplement, Flybe’s Chief Commercial Officer, Mike Rutter could not resist taking a pop at Jersey’s Economic Development Department's policy of handing out incentives to airlines to come and fly here. Their argument is that public money is being handed out in increasingly large amounts to airlines with no accountability and no long term commitment to the island.

Of course, the recent decision by Thomsonfly to stop flying to Jersey supports their argument and to be fair, they have always been consistent about it. Thomsonfly started flights to Jersey 4 years ago – presumably attracted partly by incentives for new route development. Nobody could predict that the airline’s parent company – TUI - would acquire other airlines and rationalise their fleet to only operate aircraft that cannot land in Jersey (the reason given for their withdrawal).

Of course, there is still the Heathrow subsidy that Flybe can point to. We may never know how much has been forked out by government to secure the route, but let’s hope that BMI show greater commitment than Thomsonfly have been able to. They are facing huge increases in landing fees at Heathrow from April next year of RPI + 7.5% which will put even more pressure on the viability of the route.

In the meantime, Flybe keep on flying and the tourism industry needs to recognise their commitment to Jersey. Let’s just hope they don’t get taken over by some larger airline who would rather use their UK airport slots for more profitable routes!

British Airways - it's a wipe out

Bad news arrived last week for surfers across the world, as the UK's national flag carrier British Airways issued a world-wide blanket ban on the carriage of surf boards. The ban, which is effective from 6th November will have a big impact on Jersey's surfing community and not help the island's tourism industry in the cause to attract more European and World surfing events to Jersey.

Not surprisingly surfing associations across the world are dismayed at the decision. The British Surfing Association with over 10,000 members has launched a petition to attempt to get the decision overturned, so far over 2500 have done so. Click here to view and sign the petition.

What can Jersey's tourism industry do about it? Well, hopefully the Economic Development Minister, Philip Ozouf along with Julian Green at Jersey Airport have already contacted British Airways to present our case. At the very least we should be trying to get an exemption on the Gatwick - Jersey route so that surfers can then connect to and from airlines that are still surfer-friendly.

If the ban is not overturned, then surfers will need to look elsewhere. Flybe charge £20.00, whilst bmi do not charge - but both airlines only take the boards subject to space allowing, so no guarantee you'll arrive with your surfboard anyway!

Thomsonfly - we're not smiling

I thought it was all going too smoothly for Julian Green and his team at Jersey Airport.

After a year that saw a number of new routes & significant growth in passenger numbers, we've been brought down to earth with a bump by the news that Thomsonfly are to cease operating from Doncaster, Luton & Cardiff from March 2008. This will leave Coventry as the only route operated by the airline - and who knows for how much longer.

This is disastrous for Jersey's tourism industry on 2 counts. First Thomsonfly achieved significant growth in volumes this year, with a total of over 120,000 passengers carried to/from Jersey. The airline had built up a 12% share of the market - and now it will all but disappear. More importantly, in my opinion, Thomsonfly led the market in bringing low cost fares to the island. Not just a few seats on each flight, but a significant proportion of the aircraft's capacity was sold at low fares and often these fares were available right up to departure.

As we know, this summer's weather was one of the poorest for many years, but despite that late bookings for July & August were stronger than ever. It is my belief (and that of others I have spoken to) that this demand was being driven by Thomsonfly and other airlines who were strongly promoting Jersey in their advertising as a low-cost destination - in effect doing the tactical marketing job for the island. The fact that visitors could still book fares of £70.00 or less return in peak season was a major factor in encouraging them to visit Jersey thi summer.

So now Thomsonfly are flying off to sunnier climes, what can Julian and his team do to secure an alternative operator on these routes? I am sure the Airport team will be working hard on this but the key is that whoever is persuaded (or incentivised!) to do so, is committed to providing low fares.

Latest score update: Airport 3 : Harbour 0

Not content with announcing one new route in a week, there's more good news from Jersey Airport today. Jet2.com are to start direct services between Jersey & Leeds/Bradford from 25 May 2008. The service will operate 3 days a week (Tuesday, Thursday & Saturday) until 26 October. Fares start from just £28.99 one way and are on sale now. So yet another new low-cost route starts up - and hints of more to come from Jersey Airport Director, Julian Green.

Meanwhile, doom piles upon gloom down at the harbour. Poor old HD Ferries are in trouble again - this time with the French authorities. Apparently a spot check by the Affaires Maritimes on Tuesday revealed 'deficiencies' and the vessel is now in St Malo along with the company's CEO, Chris Howe-Davies to try and resolve the matter.

All HD services are cancelled until at least Friday causing yet more inconvenience to passengers. The impact of all these issues on their forward sales must be dramatic - most people I speak to will not book with the company because of the risk of not travelling.

In the meantime, Condor must be quietly rubbing their hands together with glee. They believe that the vessel HD are using is not capable of operating the route & is a risk (as it almost proved to be on at least two occasions this summer). They may well be right, but as someone commented today, whilst a day return with their car on HD costs £99 - Condor wanted over £200 for the same journey. The route needs competition - but it also needs robust, dependable & safe operators.

Latest score: Jersey Airport 2 : Jersey Harbour 0

More good news from Jersey Airport this week – another new route launches this Saturday and there’s increased capacity on another from next year. Meanwhile the July passenger figures show that arrivals from St Malo hardly grew at all – despite the arrival of HD Ferries this year.

This Saturday, Manx2 – a relatively new start up airline with ex-Rockhopper/Blue Islands chairman, Noel Hayes, at the helm – starts flights to that well-known international airport….er, Gloucester! Initially it will be weekends only, but at the end of October it will fly Friday and Sunday evenings – thereby creating a whole new short-break opportunity to and from the Cotswolds. In order to be sure that everyone knows where the airport is, they have rather grandly re-branded themselves Gloucester (M5) – and to be fair, it is well placed for getting to lots of other places. The 19 seat aircraft will also fly on from Gloucester to the Isle of Man, thereby once again providing a link between the two finance centres.

At the same time, Flybe have announced that from March next year there will be four flights a week to/from Newcastle. The growth in routes is very encouraging and apparently there are more announcements to come over the next few weeks.

While Julian Green and his team continue to achieve good things at the airport, down at the docks, it’s a different story. July’s arrival figures are out and amongst all the positive news, it was surprising to see that arrivals from St Malo had grown by less than 1000 passengers.

Remember that with HD Ferries, capacity on the route dramatically increased. Now I know that HD have had all sorts of problems and some sailings would have been cancelled due to poor weather, but even with a few days excluded the route has hardly grown at all and the market has been split between two operators. It will be interesting to see if August shows improvement – especially as the third operator, Corsaire, started last month.

Statistics are like bikinis.......

One of the really great things about Jersey Tourism is the preponderance of statistics they make available online through their website. It’s great to be able to access all sorts of data on-line and usually the information is updated quickly and efficiently. For example June’s arrival figures are already up there – showing a healthy 3% increase overall & we should not have to wait too long to discover if this increase is matched by a rise in staying visitors.

June Arrivals

The figures also allow certain conclusions to be drawn. For example, 3756 passengers arrived from Heathrow in June. With 2 BMI flights a day and an average capacity of about 120 seats – that produces an average load factor of 52%. I wonder how happy BMI are with that figure after 3 months of operating the route? And are taxpayers seeing a return on the investment made into securing the route in the first place? We will never know because we have no idea of the size of the subsidy.

By contrast, let’s look at Luton – from where Thomsonfly started operating in May. The route provides one arrival a day, but has carried 2655 passengers. With a smaller aircraft, that’s a much more encouraging load factor of around 80%. I appreciate that there are big differences in fare levels. (I flew to Luton in May for just £40.00 return including tax), but if volume is a key requisite for tourism growth then I believe Thomsonfly should receive the bouquets. And I bet the route subsidy has cost a lot less.

Overall arrivals from London Airports are up by an impressive 12% so far this year, so that’s good news for everyone in the industry.

2006 Visitor Survey

Then there’s the latest Staying Leisure Visitor Survey – in short a very long questionnaire sent to visitors after they return home asking for their views on their stay in Jersey. At face value a good piece of work that provides useful trend analysis of visitors’ characteristics & their perceptions of Jersey.

And yet – whilst the survey tries to obtain a cross-section of visitors, there is no sampling by age range or socio-economic profiling. So if a higher proportion of questionnaires are returned by the 55+ age group this could give a very one-sided perception of the delivery of our tourist product. The survey does break down the findings by age group, but the sizes of the samples for younger age groups may be too small to be credible.

I know that First Research who produced the survey, have many years of experience in producing this report – the guys behind it used to manage the statistics unit at Jersey Tourism. The report is of extremely high quality – but in my view poses as many questions as it answers.

A US business professor, Aaron Levenstein got it about right when he said ‘Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.’ If we are going to base future investment decisions on today’s data, then we need to make sure that the numbers don’t lie.

Heathrow subsidy remains a secret. So who's next for a hand-out?

Whilst the great and the good of Jersey's tourism industry enjoy a trip round the Bay (of Biscay) aboard BMI's equivalent of the Saucy Sue, Senator Ozouf has confirmed that the subsidy provided by tax-payers to secure BMI on the Heathrow route will remain a state secret.

No surprise there then! The fact that it is being kept a secret, leads one to conclude that the amount involved is so big, that if it were revealed it would cause huge repercussions. So we wait to see if Flybe's challenge to the competition authorities both here and in the UK has any effect. Meanwhile, now that the skies have been opened from Heathrow to the US, I wonder how long BMI will want to keep flying to Jersey when they could use their slots for far more profitable routes across The Pond.

So who's next for a state handout? I expect an announcement within the next couple of weeks regarding the launch of new routes to the Continent. I would not be surprised if these are to Paris & Zurich - as these were the routes that were the last to disappear a few years ago and provide the only real chance of achieving a decent commercial result. And who will operate these routes? My guess is that the only operator who could possibly be persuaded to give it a go is a local airline - but we shall see.

It will be great to have the routes opened up. But I wonder how much they will receive from the States incentive pot? Unfortunately, we'll never know.

Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares. Jersey tourism is saying its prayers.

Guess what? I have just seen the year-end tourism statistics for 2006. They have been quietly posted on the Jersey Tourism business website . So, has 2006 been a good year? Let’s see:

• Total Arrivals – DOWN 4.6% (54,000 fewer arrivals)
• Staying leisure visitors – DOWN 4% (15,400 fewer people)
• Hotel/Guest House room occupancy – DOWN 3% (to 67% of available beds)

Not quite the continued improvement expected, or indeed heralded at the end of 2005. The small increase in visitors in 2005 then led the Minister responsible for Jersey Tourism, Senator Philip Ozouf to state that this was the ‘first sign of a reversal in our fortunes’.

At this stage, there are no detailed figures to confirm whether the average length of stay also decreased last year – as it has been doing for the past decade or more, from an average 6 nights in 1993 to 4.8 nights in 2005.

I know that one years figures don’t make a trend and the upturn in 2005 was probably just a blip. And there was a bit of good news in 2006! Business visitors increased by 7% to over 60,000. But hang on they only stayed 2.13 nights – that’s down 2.2% on 2005 and down 11% on just six years ago.

No – I am sure that the new tourism strategy, the new hotels, the new-look airport, the new Waterfront, the new tourism PPP, the new TV advert, the new air routes, the new ferry services, the new Liberation festival are all going to make a big difference! So the 15,000 drop in staying visitors is nothing to worry about.

That’s OK then. I am, however, looking forward to seeing the spin put on yet another set of disappointing results.

Brown doubles air tax - Jersey becomes even less competitive

The UK's Prime Minister in waiting, Gordon Brown, has dealt a blow to air travellers today by announcing that APD (Air Passenger Duty) for short haul flights will double from £5.00 to £10.00 from February 2007. On the face of it a fiver doesn't sound too bad - on average fares will only increase by 7% for short haul journeys. The problem is that it's the same charge whether you are flying for 35 minutes from London to Jersey, or 4 hours to Athens! I'm not an environmental expert, but surely anyone can see that there is a slight discrepancy here.

Ticket prices to Jersey, which are lower than to many other European destinations, will be hit by a much higher overall percentage increase - adding to the already uncompetitive Jersey landing charges.

I'm all in favour of government taking steps to address carbon emissions, but surely there should be a link between distance travelled (and therefore fuel burned) and the tax paid.