Capacity crunch driving up agents' average sales prices

Some 13% of agents said their average sales price in July was up to £1,000pp, down from 19% in July, with all three of the higher value bands tracked by the survey seeing increases – between £1,001pp and £2,000pp (46%, up from 43% in June); between £2,001pp and £5,000pp (32%, up from 31% in June); and in excess of £5,000pp (9%, up from 7% in June).

One agent described pricing as "very volatile", while others said clients were shopping around – both with the trade and direct – looking for pre-Covid pricing. "Availability is tight," said another, who added: "Higher prices are putting a few people off, but generally people are accepting costings."

One potentially encouraging trend is around discounting, with higher value discounting becoming increasingly less common. In May, 15% of Tracker respondents said they discounted by in excess of 10% on average; this fell to 3% in June and 0% in July.

Moreover, just 3% of agents said they discounted by a greater amount in July than they did in June. This is down from 10% when comparing the same measurement going from May into June.

Cruise buoyancy

There were increases too in terms of both the number of agents who said they didn’t discount at all in July or weren’t asked to price match, the former up from 19% in June to 29% in July and the latter from 17% in June to 22% in July.

More agents said they took a greater proportion of their business in July from repeat customers, and there was a small month-on-month hike too in the number of agents converting at least 40% of the enquiries they are currently receiving. Around a fifth of agents reporting zero amendments or rebookings in July, and a third zero cancellations.

There was a dramatic rebound in agents’ confidence in several destinations too, and some specific sectors. More than half of agents said they felt the US and Canada performed well relative to their expectations in July, up from 38% in June.

The July survey was also the first where at least 10% of respondents said that they felt every one of the 11 regions tracked performed well relative to their expectations in July.

Cruise also experienced a welcome rebound in July, with 55% of respondents telling TTG they felt the sector performed well in July relative to their expectation. This propelled cruise to its highest rate of the year so far, ranking second behind the beach holiday sector (74%) and overtaking all-inclusives (47%).