The Daily Mail has a piece today entitled Falling pound spells costlier holidays abroad for UK holidaymakers.

Why is the UK media so intent on making life even harder for UK travel companies than it already is? Although the article is basically true, it does its best to mislead.

Firstly, the title suggests sterling is falling. This isn’t the case; over recent weeks it has stabilised and even staged a (very mini) recovery.

Secondly, the piece goes on to state that since the end of July 2007, the pound has fallen 27.7% in value against the euro. This is taking the euro at a peak of 1.48 and comparing it to a rate of around 1.07. It is currently around the 1.13 mark. The above line certainly seems to suggest that the current rate is 27.7% less than two years ago. In fact, if you compare today (1.136) with two years ago (1.475) it is 22.98% down.

It might all seem like a matter of degree, but why make out that things are worse than they actually are?

One of the big travel cliches this year is that everyone is escaping the Eurozone. So where are they going?

The British pound has taken a tumble against virtually every currency, yet it seems the Euro is taking most of the bad publicity. Turkey is often cited as a good alternative to the Eurozone, but you still get 10% less Turkish Lira for your pound than 2 years ago. This compares to 23% less Euros, which is similar to America, Morocco, Egypt and Croatia.

The pound is faring particularly badly compared to the Swiss Franc, where there has been a 30% drop in the exchange rate. This is bad news for a number of ski operators because Swiss Hoteliers aren’t well-known for dropping their rates.

So where is a good place to go to escape the Eurozone? It really comes down to Iceland or staying in the UK.

So why the bad press for the Euro when the exchange rate is as bad virtually everywhere else? Part of it is because it has been used as an easy target by operators selling destinations outside of Europe and it’s not easy to set the record straight once the message is out there that Europe offers lousy value.

Visit Britain has expressed its disappointment that the weakness of the pound hasn’t led to a significant rise in visitors to Britain.

Is it wise to base a destination marketing campaign based on exchange rates? Probably not.

Firstly, you are now basing your marketing on price. If this was your original strategy then fine. If not, you need to be careful. Even if the pound dropped to almost zero, London would still be an expensive destination for most people.

Secondly, it’s transient and difficult to market. You could book now and by the time you travel it could have recovered. Very few people buy their currency for trips well in advance of their journey.

There have been reports that Turkey has good bookings from the UK for this summer due to its relatively weak currency. One explanation could be that Turkey is traditionally quite a price-sensitive destination, another is that it is quite logical to switch from Greece to Turkey. There is no such logical switch for Britain.

Visit Britain should leave the exchange rate well alone and leave it to its members and inbound operators to offer better value to its customers.