CATO’s top ten Europe sellers, members of the European Travel Commission (ETC) and their agents gathered Tuesday night in Toronto to bring every part of the sales formula together for the same goal: encourage the curious to explore Europe differently.
Intrepid, G Adventures, TravelBrands, The Travel Corporation, Collette, Railbookers, Transat, Goway, Royal Irish Tours and Globus were joined by Ireland, Flanders-Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, and France in the first ETC event held in conjunction with CATO.
Sandra Moffatt and Marco Frank
“CATO are ultimately the ones that work with the operators who sell the products, they are an extension of what we're trying to do; working together with CATO on this event just makes sense,” Sandra Moffatt, Country Manager, Canada, Tourism Ireland tells TravelPulse Canada. “It's hitting every angle of the industry, every part of that sales formula, that’s what we're trying to do - bring us all together.”
“We’ve got to make sure we send the same message that we’re all in the same boat, we're out there unified and jointly together,” Marco Frank, Trade Manager, Visit Flanders says. “We want to get the message of travelling throughout the year to Europe, so not all the visitors are in one place in July; February, March or December can be just as appealing.”
CATO numbers are strong; a 2021 economic study by BDO found in 2019, tour operator members of CATO generated sales of $6 billion dollars, representing nearly 32 million travellers. The European Travel Commission counts 35 NTOs in Europe and 12 private organizations as its members.
Travel to Europe has been steadily increasing since the pandemic, however many countries such as Iceland, Croatia and Latvia are still below 2019 levels. Leading the increase is Serbia, Turkey, Portugal, Spain, Poland, Norway and the UK.
Both Moffatt and Marco say that driving people to visit Europe outside of peak seasons benefits both travellers looking to explore something new with their vacation time and the local industry who needs to attract and retain talent by offering more than just seasonal employment.
There’s also sustainability component which has multiple pillars in Europe; environmentally and economically through an excellent railway system and directing travellers to areas with typically less tourism. All of that combined is starting a new trend of exploring Europe differently.
Melanie Paul Hus, Atout France
“We have a lot of bookings for the fall, which was a bit surprising, but people are obviously listening to the advice of going at times where it's a little bit less busy,” Melanie Paul Hus, Director, Canada for Atout France tells TravelPulse Canada.
“A trend I see is mostly that we have events that last longer now, for instance, the Normandy impressionist festival in 2024, starts in March and ends in September. It’s easy to say travel at a different time, but what if you were going to miss great exhibitions? We are now adapting and extending the cultural happenings.
“Most destinations in Europe have great news and especially great new sustainable approaches. Tonight is about working together promoting the future for Europe.”
Judith Coates
Travel agent Judith Coates agrees and says Europe is well on its way.
“Europe is just such a hot destination right now. Canadians specifically tend to think if I'm going away in January, I want to go sun, they probably don't realize that there's an opportunity to go to Europe and maybe take advantage of lower prices.
I know the weather is not definitely sunny like a sun destination is, but you have the culture you have the food, you have the experience, and it's probably more affordable.”
“I think one of the things that we could do maybe collectively is avoid calling the low season low season,” says Brett Walker, CATO Chair. “We are constantly referred to it as low season. Why don't we refer to it as the best time to go? Germany in December is the best time for Christmas markets, the fall in France is great if you’re into wine, for example.
Tonight is a chance for all of us to come together. We can be ardent competitors by day, but this is a cooperative environment. This is a time when we as a group, absolutely need that spirit of cooperation to succeed.”
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