Last-Minute European Cycling

SCOTTSDALE, AZ – July 28, 2011 – Discover France http://www.discoverfrance.com, a leading French bike tour company, reports that despite a slow US economy and strong Euro their cycling vacation business is up, thanks to last-minute bookings.

While the trend to 11^th hour reservations is familiar to many American companies, this is a new phenomenon for this European tour operator.

Loren Siekman, director, said that “against all logic,” only a handful of space is left on many of its popular summer and fall programs.

The pattern evolved thusly. The company showed good advance sales all year through April.  However in May there was a big increase in last minute bookings as the travel season got under way. Tour de France tours were 60 percent sold at the end of April and about 70 percent sold at the end of May and since June remaining space was filled.

Sixty percent of all new bookings for its Pure Adventures http://pure-adventures.com/ self-guided division arrived within 30 days of departure dates and 40 percent for Discover France’s guided tours.

“We’ve still had high airfares this year; tour and travel prices have not gone down; the Euro is relatively high. If I have to guess, I would say it is a question of ‘uncertainty’ that’s driving this trend.  People have so much uncertainty and difficulty planning too far in advance and maybe taking advantage of ‘early-bird’ booking discounts. They are OK to pay full price and high season rates now for the flexibility of last-minute decisions,” said Siekman.

Discover France Adventures has been organizing bicycle tours and hiking tours in France since 1994 and has offices in both the USA and in France. Discover France is a pioneer in bringing self guided cycling and hiking and now multisport adventures to a broader market outside of Europe. Pure Adventures is an outgrowth of the success of Discover France Adventures, now in its 17th year in 2011.

Self-guided bicycle tours were a growth area for the cycling industry last year and it continues to be this year, according to Pure Adventures (http://pure-adventures.com/), sister company to Discover France Adventures that specializes in self guided and custom guided cycling and multisport tours in France.

Discover France Adventures award winning tours are made up of their unique self guided tours and very competitively priced guided tours. They are proud to be a continued supporter of Sustainable Travel International.