So That Was 2016...

A year is a long time: The last time we headed to the attic to dust off our baubles, Cameron was Prime Minister and Boris was Mayor of London, the EU Referendum wouldn’t be announced for another two months and the bookies were giving Donald J Trump a (generous) 2% chance of becoming the next President of the United States.

The first sign that things were starting to get a bit weird was when Leicester City climbed to the top of the Premier League, but back then we knew with complete certainty that it wouldn’t last. We settled into our festive break safe in the knowledge that all was just as it should be.

I don’t need to tell you what happened next! If you find yourself in a few years’ time struggling with the ‘What was the Year?’ round in your local pub quiz, my advice is simple - just say 2016!

For travel it’s been yet another year of geopolitical challenges. I’m not sure if I can remember exactly when terrorist attacks stopped being exceptional events and became part of the normal cycle of news, but in the last fifteen months we’ve witnessed attacks in Paris, Brussels and Turkey, and the bombing of a charter flight out of Sharm El Sheik, and yet the appetite for travel remains as strong as ever. Undeterred by spontaneous attacks, British travellers have for the most part simply changed their choice of destination.

Harder to predict is the effect of the EU Referendum result. The most immediate impact came from the drop in the value of the pound. Overseas holidays next year will be more expensive; travellers will have to pay more to get there and more again once they’ve arrived. Expect 2017 to be a bumper year for the UK inbound market and sales of all-inclusive to grow significantly as customers try to lock down their costs in advance.

The longer term impact is harder to call. For what it’s worth, I believe that the vote in favour of leaving the EU was not really much to do with our relationship with Europe, it was more a reflection of the disillusionment felt by many people about the political process; a lack of trust in the political leadership combined with a deep sense of injustice. It was payback for bankers’ bonuses and MPs fiddling expenses; for aggressive tax avoidance and CEO greed.

That same populist sentiment was played out again in the American Presidential election and will, in all probability, dominate European politics for years to come. This, combined with a protracted and difficult negotiation with the EU for a new deal, will bring significant economic uncertainty; this year may have been tough for travel, but expect the next few years to be tougher still.

There will be winners and losers of course, but a piece of advice given to me by a Maasai guide in Kenya springs to mind: ‘When you’re being chased by a lion,’ he said, ‘you don’t need to run faster than the lion. You just need to run faster than your friends!’