Busy February Half Term Week 2015 Predicted

Tour operators are advising people to book early for the coming ski season and saying this particularly applies to families looking for February half term holidays.

While tour operators of course always advise people to book early, there seems to be more to it this year as the February half term week is concentrated in to just one week, rather than being spread over several depending on where you live. This is compounded by the fact that many French, Belgian and Dutch schools are on holiday the same week, concentrating demand.

"Almost a third of Le Ski's holidays for next winter are already booked – by those in the know! They know ...that there is only one half term this February…" said a statement from the company.

That main half-term week begins with departures on Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th February 2015.

The high, early demand is concentrated on ski holidays to France in particular, most other major ski nations do not have school holidays at this time, although of course demand from the UK will be up to all brochure destinations.

Simple solution to this.

Tony_H wrote:Simple solution to this.

Not if you want to take your children skiing...

Parents challenge UK Government Rules

I can understand both sides ...... I'm not really interested in taking little Wickers skiing in half term re crowds and I refuse to pay the inflated prices, so I shall continue to take her out of school for the foreseeable future as I really do believe it is part of her education ....

However, when your children have reached GCSE and A level stage, as my two have, it's not realistic or appropriate to take them out of school.

We've been seriously struggling to book our New Year trip this time round. I think demand has been outstripping supply and the cost uplift in Val d'Isere for that week is crazy. In the end, we gave up and booked a self catering apartment in Zermatt. Much better accommodation at a lower cost. I think the resorts popular with the UK market are probably seeing an upsurge in bookings, perhaps due to better economic conditions?

Looking forward to going back to Zermatt again, particularly in cooler conditions.

Keep in mind that this is not simply a UK issue. Most European countries have half term breaks in February. Hooland, in particular, has a high skier spread across Europe, ~ they can drive there. Austria has a high influx of Germans.

Hence February demand is only partially influenced by Brits.

If the government were a business, it would have investigated opening up the possibility of split breaks. I understand there might be a social response to this, however, if families were offered the choice of February or March breaks, can school systems cope with this? Private businesses could.