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?
