There’s a “90s buzz” back around travel after agents reported record-breaking January sales – and a clear pattern of consumers returning in their droves to travel advisors, with queues snaking out their doors.
This turn-of-year sales momentum looks set to continue into February, with Joanne Dooey, director of Scottish agency Love to Travel, hailing January the business’s best since it opened in 2015. “I’ve not seen queues like this since the mid-90s – we’re absolutely delighted,” Dooey told TTG. “What the shops are bringing in is comparable to what we saw in the 90s too. People are spending more and upgrading.”
Advantage Travel Partnership members have been reporting daily bookings growth of 30%-60%, said chief commercial officer Kelly Cookes, while Miles Morgan, founder of Miles Morgan Travel, added desks were full at his agencies.
“It’s been a long time since it’s been this buoyant,” said Morgan, whose 18-branch business posted a record January “by quite a sizeable margin”, albeit with sales peaking a little later in the month than usual – a trend which eventually saw Saturday 21 January deliver a new record day in the agency’s 16-year history. It’s been great for staff morale – the buzz has returned."
Mark Delaney, director of Travel Circle in Preston, added: “It’s been fantastic in terms of footfall. Even if we just plod the last week of the month, we’ll beat our best month ever. We’d beaten all of December after three days in January. There are not enough of us. I’m sat upstairs with a customer as we’ve got no desks free!”
All of this is reflective of a much-hoped- for post-pandemic prediction being realised – shoppers returning to travel consultants to book their holidays – with both Dooey and Morgan reporting an influx of new clients. “We have seen a lot of people who haven’t booked with us before,” said Dooey. “They’ve had bad experiences booking themselves or online. Some are saying they haven’t booked with a high street agent for 15 years.”
It’s not just traditional retail agencies making record sales either. Travel Counsellors had taken £70 million in January sales as TTG went to press, with Wednesday 18 January the business’s biggest ever sales day at £5.53 million. Stand-out bookings for the homeworking giant included a gorilla experience in Rwanda costing more than £250,000 and an almost £90,000 Nile cruise.
Not Just Travel, meanwhile, recorded its highest average number of bookings per consultant ever in the penultimate week of January, with booking revenues more than double the same period in 2019 and commission up by more than 60%. A “sharp” focus on cruise since September has tripled bookings compared with pre-Covid levels, with cruise sales now representing nearly 20% of the homeworking firm’s business.
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