Social media a must

Agents need to adapt to much changing consumer buying behaviours, warned Advantage Travel Partnership Leisure Director Kelly Cookes.

Speaking at the Advantage Travel conference, she told delegates that continued uncertainty following the pandemic disruption meant bookings are still coming in late. According to the latest weekly figures, around 40% of Advantage bookings were for holidays departing within 12 weeks. But Cookes said that on a weekly basis Advantage was now seeing ‘further out’ bookings creeping back up.

“We need to find ways to encourage consumers to be braver and book earlier and I think as confidence grows this will happen. I believe this a short-lived problem.”

She also predicted that the traditional peak booking period would eventually return but not until 2024. In order to recover bookings, she said traditional opening hours might need to change to suit consumer demand, suggesting that agents might offer zoom appointments or extend their out-of-hours services.

Cookes noted that the high street has been through a period of change and that many agencies have scaled down their presence.

Home-working is here to stay, she added. “We launched a homeworking model in 2020 and we expect that to continue to grow.”

She advised agents to make more use of social media.

“Social media is absolutely a distribution channel,” she said.

“Research has shown that 32% of consumers will actively look on social media before deciding where to travel and 52% have actually made a purchase having seen something on social media. We all need a social media strategy.”