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Saga launches latest holiday range as it looks ahead to return of travel
See:
Https://newsroom.saga.co.uk/news/saga-launches-latest-holiday-range-as-it-looks-ahead-to-return-of-travel
Extract:
Chris Simmonds, CEO of Saga Holidays, said:
“We know that having something to look forward to can really boost well-being, so with the recent news of the rollout of the vaccine and being able to offer a diverse range of holidays to inspire guests to travel again is very positive."
...
"We’re looking ahead to 2021 with renewed optimism and look forward to welcoming customers back soon.”
Bear in mind that a Saga cruise ship, unlike those other massive cruise monstrosities, will only be taking a maximum of 800 guests ashore and are 100% pure no-fly cruises departing local English home ports.
Saga also have the advantages that the cruise destinations are all UK or European, avoiding the currently toxic US territory and that the bulk of their passenger list are set to be double-dose vaccinated by May.
And all of this aboard one brand new and one 1-year old Covid-adapted ships.
Recall from:
Https://newsroom.saga.co.uk/news/saga-moves-a-step-closer-to-sailing-with-award-of-new-covid-safety-accreditation
SAGA moves a step closer to sailing with award of new COVID safety accreditation by becoming the first cruise operator to be awarded new COVID-19 health assurance accreditation by Lloyd’s Register, the maritime safety experts. The move is a crucial step ahead of the planned return of cruise operations in spring next year in a COVID-secure environment.
Lloyd’s Register has awarded Saga the Shield+ accreditation, the highest category of health assurance they have. The new framework has been created to reduce risk and provide greater confidence in the safety procedures of operators against the introduction of infectious diseases onboard cruise ships, including COVID-19, Norovirus and common flu ....
For the record, I'm assuming no Saga cruising in April, with the Inaugural Cruise to be the first cruise setting sail on the Spirit of Adventure on May 4th. Any better outcome than that for me would be a huge bonus.
Bookings for the Mediterranean Ancient Wonders on April 12th aboard the Discovery have recently reversed slightly with 30 more cabins available today than a month ago, whilst the Inaugural Cruise on the Adventure remain buoyant as per my earlier post.
That's why for me, it feels like April is just slightly too early given the current Covid scenario, but May could well just make.
But, I stress, this is purely my guesswork.
Hi Olmsey,
Re your: I'm trying to work out whether the 63.1% can only ever get to, say, 80% - or in other words is 800 cabins a full ship in "normal" circumstances
These pax figures are based on the Covid-adjusted 80% total occupancy of 800 pax. So the 63.1% really needs to get to 100% - as that is 100% of 800 pax.
Both Saga ships have, I believe, 554 cabins - 445 twins and 109 singles. The total Covid-restricted pax capacity of 800 will likely be smoothed across the cabin availability.
I hope that answers your question.
Bookings for The Inaugural Cruise departing May 4, 2021 have continued to strongly build with occupancy rate now at a high of 63.1%.
These figures are date of snapshot, twin cabins available (3 types), single cabins available (3 types), total available, total booked, occupancy rate.
I have been collating this data manually since October.
15/10/20 169 34 14 1 5 2 442 358 44.8%
23/10/20 163 33 11 1 5 2 422 378 47.3%
27/10/20 158 33 10 1 5 2 410 390 48.8%
12/11/20 156 30 12 1 5 2 404 396 49.5%
26/11/20 140 25 10 1 5 2 358 442 55.3%
01/12/20 135 25 10 1 6 2 349 451 56.4%
05/12/20 130 23 9 1 6 2 333 467 58.4%
17/12/20 118 23 8 2 6 1 307 493 61.6%
12/01/21 112 23 9 0 6 1 295 505 63.1%
And I noted further Saga Holidays advertising activity yesterday with full wrap-around sponsorship of the new ITV travel show South Africa with Greg Wallace. He even had to carry a Saga branded ruck-sack. :)
Not a bad program either.
The situation on the ground today is clearly relevant to the likes of TUI who have departures on offer between now and March, but far less so for Saga.
Saga is not set to re-commence cruising until April.
This strong lockdown and vaccine roll-out gives the real possibility that Saga's departures may not be impacted. As an investor, I'd be happy if Saga manages to start up tour and cruise holidays by May. Before then, I see only as a welcome bonus.
The Telegraph
7 JANUARY 2021 • 6:03PM
Britons warned of summer holiday shortage
Travel agents are warning of rising holiday prices and an impending shortage of summer availability – caused by pent-up demand for future trips, and the many postponed bookings from last year.
"We’ve already seen an increase in bookings for this summer with Greece and Turkey currently being the most popular choices for customers, followed by the Balearic and Canary Islands," a TUI spokesperson told Telegraph Travel.
Meanwhile, Thomas Cook reported "an immediate jump in holiday bookings as soon as people finished work for Christmas".
The UK's domestic travel industry has warned of limited availability this year. "The pent-up demand for Easter through to 2022 is really high," said Alistair Handyside, Executive Chair of The Professional Association of Self-Caterers UK.
"Anyone who has not booked a holiday in the UK soon will be looking at the leftovers."
Package holiday prices are largely driven by the cost of flights, says Craig Ashford, Director of Marketing at travel agency TravelUp – and as demand rises, so too will holiday prices, he warns. "Airlines are trying to stimulate the market so there are some phenomenally low rates. As confidence returns the total number of airline seats will remain the same, so the cost will rise. "My strong advice is to book now."
I ride Yamaha FJ motorcycles - currently an FJR1300, other FJ1200s previously.
Plus, ahem, I'm a lifelong Arsenal FC supporter (a "Gooner" for those who don't know) - which has recently been quite a trial, although things now seem to be turning much brighter and the future's finally looking very promising.
Rather similar to Saga really. :)
It's great to see this lockdown accelerating our transition out of this pandemic.
It was always a folly to keep secondary schools open during a mid-winter health crisis characterised by airborne transmission. By Spring, with the completion of all citizens on the priority list having had at least their first vaccine dose and better weather returning, schools can much more safely resume.
Somewhere on the path between now and that Spring, confidence will start to return to those booking holidays and cruises for later in the year. People who have been stuck at home for nearly a year are desperate to resume leisure travel. There will be a huge boom in the industry.
All experienced investors know that the markets are forward-looking - so how will a travel company be trading 6 months from now - early July 2021?
My guess is rather well and that is why I now have my largest ever holding in Saga as a massively under-priced recovery play for 2021.
Why do I say "massively under-priced"?
This time last year Saga was trading at 700p before crashing to 250p at the end of the last week of March when lockdown commenced.
Since then Saga's non-travel arms have continued to trade profitably, the businesses have been streamlined, redundancies implemented removing un-necessary tiers of management and other deadwood, remote-working has been successfully rolled out, 3 major offices (Middelburg, Cheriton Parc & the Thanet Contact Centre) have been retired and put up for sale - and £100 Million raised to bolster finances to protect the travel business through the pandemic.
At that time there was no vaccine - not even the prospect of any vaccine within the year ahead.
Now we are in the happy position thanks to marvellous scientists of having multiple vaccines available globally and two vaccines already being administered to our population.
Obviously, the next few weeks will see gloomy news flow, but this will start to abate and turn toward far happier headlines ahead of the Spring.
This seems to me to be the perfect time to be holding Saga stock.
I found this extract rather interesting in The Telegraph today on this subject.
----
On Saturday, the Prime Minister said 350,000 people had already received their shots. On Sunday morning, Mr Han**** said he hoped that would stand at 500,000 by the evening.
Taking Mr Han****’s more optimistic estimate, an average of 41,666 have been reached on each of the 12 days the programme has been running. At that rate, it would take 600 days – nearly two years – to get through all 25 million on the list.
Part of this “slow start,” as Professor Chris Whitty has described it, has been to ensure that patients given the vaccine are assessed closely, and the programme will hopefully scale up dramatically over the next few weeks.
Currently, there are 200 local vaccination clinics up and running and they will be followed by another 1,000.
"This could nullify Saga's customer age advantage to be first out of the port."
Why?
The cruise staff scenario is common to all cruise companies, but the customer demographic advantage is unique to Saga.
Yeah, a good program.
It ended with the presenter stating:
"But one thing is for certain , there is a legion of cruise lovers that can't wait to get back on board when and if the ships start cruising again."
I don't believe there will be a bid by RDH, nor is it wanted by shareholders like myself.
Any bid would need to be at a huge premium given the clear visibility that we now have from here back towards normality during 2021.
There is currently a huge disconnect between the share price which is representative of a company nearing failure and the actuality of a well-funded organisation, reset to core values by a founding family member and operating into the first year of economic bounce-back from a global pandemic.
Personally, I doubt that RDH would be bidding. He's done his bit for Saga (financially) and is now set to see his investment repay him handsomely over the years ahead.
The great news of the FDA panel approval, as well relief for human health, is another welcome step in the right direction as regaining control of Covid-19 Stateside is a pre-cursor to the CDC white-flagging the US cruise sector. And sector normalisation globally is of huge benefit to all sector operators as it rebuilds confidence.
We have a long way to go still (on all levels, societal, economic, company level), but everything now seems to flowing in the right direction.
As per my post earlier during the panic, don't be wrong-footed by misleading headlines about tourism in Europe next year. Brexit with a deal or no deal will have no meaningful long term effect on visa-free accessibility outside of some immediate Covid-19 constraints - and they will be dropping off month by month as we move through 2021.
It is a misinterpretation of the effects of the story that UK holidaymakers may be barred from EU after 1 January under Covid rules.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/dec/09/uk-holidaymakers-could-be-barred-from-visiting-eu-under-covid-safety-rules
Shorters have read the headline and have swooped.
But read the story and think about it in Saga's context.
It is likely to be irrelevant to Saga who have no holidaymakers whatsoever set to travel until well into March and April by when Covid rules on travel will have changed several times, with corridors set and reset on a national basis:
"EU member states can override the European council recommendations in theory, should they wish to"
Which they will - Spain and Greece will be first in the queue to do exactly that as Covid numbers come under control as the vaccine rolls out.
I expect a strong rebound from the current price as I write this - 2.26 - as the penny drops.
Further to Beachbum1978's post on Saga's ‘Once-in-a-lifetime’ collection. I received the associated mailshot and excellent brochure this morning.
And very impressive it is too - a real return to Saga's earlier focus on being different - higher quality, knowledge and attention to detail.
There's also a decent page-flip version available at:
Https://travel.saga.co.uk/brochure-request/nhb-gh0884/once-in-a-lifetime-collection.html
All very nice.
smorty,
Re RDSB, I know Shell and its investment space extremely well, having invested in it for many years.
It's in a volatile sector that you have to really understand to develop long-term investments (rather than a 6 month punt) - the sector is geo-politically very sensitive but incredibly rewarding to research and to internalise the knowledge accrued.
Daniel Yergin's 2 seminal texts are a great starting point for anyone interested in studying the energy sector. Of course the context of that historical background has to be blended with an understanding of recent rapidly evolving issues including shale production (the boom and recent partial bust), the huge impact of green energy policy (via LNG for a while yet) and ESG issues.
Let alone the recently learned hard lessons of the affect of pandemics on demand and the subsequent politics of orchestrating and maintaining supply constraints amongst disparate groups of competing nations.
I'd expect RDSB to do very well over the next year as the macro cycle turns toward industrials, commodities and energy. But the cycle's rotation is also moving to value, small-caps and stocks ravaged by the effects of Covid-19.
So I like both stocks but on an absolute return basis to 2021Q4, I'd expect Saga to perform rather better than Shell or BP.
But I wish good luck to you.
You still seem upset that you sold at 230p before the rise to 340/350p.
But that's okay.
We all make mistakes from time to time - at least you can now access these shares ludicrously cheaply around 260/270p - presumably courtesy of Setanta - otherwise you'd be looking at 420/450p by now.
Enjoy the opportunity.
It could possibly be that Setanta Asset Management are continuing to reduce their holdings - in which case an RNS should appear at the next threshold (around when they fall below a 6% holding).
According to my notes, they have reduced from a huge 10.997% holding before 05 October via the following threshold crossing notifications :
9.167% crossed on 5th October 2020, notified on the 6th
8.914% crossed on 13th November 2020, notified on the 17th
7.948% crossed on 19th November 2020, notified on the 23rd
6.951% crossed on 24th November 2020, notified on the 30th
That huge number of share sells is IMHO the key factor that was initially suppressing the share price (pre-rise) and has continued to dampen down the recent corrective rise up to around 340/350p.
Once they have reached their target holding and stopped selling, logic dictates that we could well see much stronger price rises thereafter.
In many ways, it speaks to the strength of this stock that its share price has held up so well in the face of such massive disposals.
I still have their client notes on Saga from when they initiated investment to their Global Equity Fund in Q1 2018 if anyone is interested.