WEEKLY BRIEFING

MMGY Hills Balfour Weekly Briefing |

WEEKLY BRIEFING

19 July 2024

ECONOMIC, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL UPDATE

Global IT outage causes major disruptions across key sectors

A global IT outage linked to Windows computers has disrupted banks,

airlines, rail services, supermarkets, and other institutions worldwide. In the

UK, doctor surgeries couldn't access patient records, and Sky News went off

air for hours. Airlines like American, Delta, and United were forced to ground

flights, with airports in Germany, Spain, and Amsterdam reporting issues.

Edinburgh Airport's boarding scanners failed, causing manual checks.

Alaska's emergency 911 lines were down. The UK’s Southern, Thameslink,

Gatwick Express, and Great Northern rail services experienced widespread IT

problems. The London Stock Exchange's news service was disrupted, and the

NHS booking system in England went offline. The outage, affecting Windows

PCs globally, is linked to the cyber security firm, Crowdstrike, though it's not

seen as a cyberattack.

Donald Trump Shooter was flagged to authorities twice before attempted

assassination

A clearer timeline has emerged regarding the assassination attempt on

Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally, revealing that local police and Secret

Service missed several opportunities to stop the gunman, Thomas Matthew

Crooks, before he fired. Local police first identified Crooks, who was acting

suspiciously, about an hour before the shooting but lost track of him. A

counter-sniper later flagged him using a rangefinder, but despite this,

Crooks was not intercepted and managed to shoot at Trump, injuring him

and killing one rally goer. The incident has raised serious concerns about

security failures, prompting calls for the resignation of Secret Service

Director Kimberly Chea tle. An investigation by the Department of Homeland

Security's inspector general and an independent review directed by

President Biden are underway to determine the extent of these security

lapses.

MMGY Hills Balfour Weekly Briefing |

19 July 2024

UN Top Court to deliver landmark opinion on the Israel and Palestine conflict

The UN's top court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), is poised to

deliver a landmark advisory opinion on the legal consequences of Israel's 57-

year occupation of the Palestinian territories, including the West Bank, East

Jerusalem, and Gaza. This follows a request by the UN General Assembly.

Despite Israel's refusal to participate in oral hearings and its rejection of the

court's legitimacy, 52 countries submitted opinions, mostly condemning the

occupation as illegal. If the ICJ deems the occupation illegal, it could

significantly impact international trade and the legitimacy of Israel's

presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and set new legal parameters

for future negotiations. The advisory opinion, though not legally binding, will

carry substantial political weight and may influence the UN General

Assembly's subsequent actions, potentially catalysing renewed negotiations.

Friday set to be ‘busiest day’ for flight departures since October 2019

Friday (July 19) is set to be the busiest day for UK flight departures so far this

year, as schools in England break up for the summer holidays. There will be

more than 3,200 departures on Friday, the highest number of daily

departures since October 2019, according to research from aviation

analytics firm Cirium. Over the course of tomorrow and the weekend (July 19-

21), 9,075 flights ar e scheduled to depart UK airports, equating to more than

1.6 million seats. Compared to the same weekend in 2023, scheduled

departures ar e up 4% year-on-year. Scheduled departures across the

weekend ar e also set to reach 93% of 2019 levels. While UK departure

numbers sit below 2019 levels, there are over 2,500 more available seats from

UK airports over the three days, compared to t he same weekend in 2019.

Heathrow is set to record the highest number of departures, followed by

Gatwick, Manchester, Stansted and Edinburgh.

The getaway, though, has been hit by a global IT outage affecting airlines

and airports, with the extent of the disruption not yet fully clear. By mid-

morning, Cirium had counted nearly 1,500 cancellations globally, and said

more would likely follow.

Agents hopeful of ‘biggest ever’ lates market after election and Euros

Agents are hopeful of a record-breaking summer lates market following the

general election and the conclusion of the European Championships at the

weekend. Several agents told TTG they noticed an immediate uptick in

enquiries following England’s defeat to Spain on Sunday, which marked the

end of a busy period for the nation. The outlook is supported by figures from

homeworking and franchise agency Not Just Travel, which reported a 25%

TRADE UPDATE

MMGY Hills Balfour Weekly Briefing |

19 July 2024

increase in last-minute bookings following the election and the Euros. Co-

founder Steve Witt said booking levels this week were comparable with

January. “With the conclusion of the Euros, the general election result

bolstering economic stability and consumer confidence, consistently

disappointing wea ther and our travel consultants actively engag i n g their

client networks, everyt hi n g is perfectly aligned,” he said.

Travel agencies’ green claims to go under the microscope, advertising

watchdog warns

Travel agencies’ claims about thei r sustainability credentials are coming

under more stringent scrutiny, a director of the UK’s advertising watchdog

has warned the sector. Speaking at TTG’s Fairer Travel Sustainability Forum

on Thursday (11 July), Miles Lockwood, director of complaints and

investigations at the Advertising Standards Au thority (ASA), said: “We’re

carrying out some monitoring around travel agency claims, more broadly

around sustainable, eco-friendly claims or absolute claims, whi ch is

potentially problematic." He stressed the ASA was not tar geting individual

companies within the industry, but “keywords” in their advertising that could

potentially be problematic.

Delta - Delta Air Lines saw second quarter profits drop by 11% year-on-year

amid higher costs and discounted economy fares across t he US airline

sector. The decline to $1.5 billion came despite improved international

revenue helped by strong transatlantic travel demand.

Etihad Airways - Etihad Airways’ June passenger carryings rose by more

than a t hird over the same month last year. The UAE carrier flew 1.5 million

passengers with an average load factor of 86%. Eight new routes wer e

introduced from Abu Dhabi to Bali, Jaipur and Al Qassim in Saudi Arabia in

addition to the seasonal links to Nice, Antalya, Mykonos, Santorini and

Malaga.

Jet2.com - Jet2.com and Jet2holidays have brought forward their launch

date from Bournemouth airport by two months in response to high demand.

The brands ha ve now decided to launch on February 4, 2025, with winter sun

trips to the Canary Islands. Since Bournemouth was confirmed as Jet2.com

and Jet2holidays’ new base in March, the companies have recorded strong

demand.

United Airlines - United Airlines flew the most customers for a second quarter

in its history, carrying 44.4 million passengers in April, May and June. The US

AIRLINE UPDATE

MMGY Hills Balfour Weekly Briefing |

19 July 2024

carrier also set a record for the most ever customers carried in a day by the

airline at 565,000. Its capacity was up 8.3% compared to the second quarter

of 2023, according to the airline’s Q2 results.

Ocean Holidays - Ocean Holidays is to expand its focus on accessible

product beyond its Florida s tronghold, as it hailed the impact of its specialist

programme on conversion and retention rates. It is now in talks with

stakeholders in California to extend the programme and is looking to embed

it further in its offering across the US, Canada and Mexico.

Royal Caribbean - Royal Caribbean vice-president EMEA Gerard Nolan

believes their new ship, Utopia of the Seas, can help fulfil the potential of the

UK’s multigenerational market. “Multigenerational family travel is probably

more developed in the US at the moment, but it’s definitely growing in the

UK,” Nolan said. “That’s something we see as a real opportunity to grow.”

TUI - TUI has released its winter 2025 programme ea rly with holidays

available until Easter 2026. Destinations with exclusive, direct charter flight s

from various regional UK airports include Senegal, Cape Verde, Goa and

Thailand. The operator claims to be offering its biggest ever winter for free

child places after expanding its free kids’ portfolio for summer 2025.

TikTok announces Eventbrite integration

TikTok has launched a new partn ership with Eventbrite which will allow

creators to promote links in videos. This will provide a way for creators to

seamlessly promote and sell tickets to their community. Multiple links can be

added to a video, with users being shown the relevant events based on their

locations. Over the past year TikTok has added similar partnerships with

Ticketmaster and CTS EVENTIM in Europe.

Meta testing AI comment summaries

Meta is testing AI comment summaries that will provide an overview of

comments on a Facebook post. This follows YouTube’s testing where they

separate comments into separate subjects. X has another system that

summarises news stories for X Premium subscribers. As part of the testing

creators can provide feedback on these services and whether they’re useful.

TOUR OPERATORS, TRAVEL AGENCIES, OTA UPDATE

SOCIAL UPDATE

MMGY Hills Balfour Weekly Briefing |

19 July 2024

The Business of Events publishes International Planner Sentiment Report

2024

The report shows the current priorities of event buyers from across the

sector, including corporate, association, ag ency and incentive and reward,

from the UK, Europe and North America when selecting an event destination

or venue. All thos e surveyed were asked to rank 10 topics of sentiment on a

scale of 1 - 10, with 1 being regarded as not very important and 10 as very

important. For UK planners, cost and value for money was the top priority,

with a score of 10, while topics scoring 9 included equity and diversity, safety

and security and destination welcome. Cultural identity and sustainability

and social impact were the lowest scoring topics, each rating 7. The report

shows differences in priorities across the regions. For North American

planners safety and security was the top issue when choosing a venue or

destination, scoring 10, while in Europe there were five issues tied for first

place on 9 points each: cost and value for money; destination and city brand;

equity and diversity; safety and security; and destination welcome.

Youtuber ‘MrBeast’ has successfully removed 34 million pounds of rubbish

and plastic from oceans and rivers all across the globe, with each dollar

donated verified by an independent third party as going directly to removing

one pound of tr as h. Read more here.

MICE UPDATE

LIGHTER NOTE