February news
This month has been all about travel shows and brochure launches. Both have been very popular which is a great indicator of demand. Good news all around.
Most agents report higher sales in Jan/Feb 2024 than the same time in 2023 which was already a very big year. A key difference is that in many cases the staff at agents in 2023 were new with one agent reporting 40% of staff being there under a year at that time. We are now a year on, so these staff are now more experienced and making better sales with less mistakes. There is also a very noticeable drop in age for the present new recruits, this shows that young people are travelling again, then they are returning and looking for work in travel.
Revenue is far above pre-Covid levels but passenger numbers in many cases are down due to high airfares and high rates for ground product. Agents report some of their biggest peak sales period ever at the start of 2023, but that this was chaos. 2024 is tracking to not only be bigger, but it is also now organised and running smoothly.
Fitur 2024 | International Tourism Fair (ifema.es). This was in Madrid at the end of January. Trade demand was good and follow up has been done. Consumer intertest was also high but with very few agents/products attending which was a shame.
Destinations Travel show London, https://www.destinationsshow.com/london/ ran for four days and had massive demand from consumers and a very high quantity of suppliers attending. Trailfinders had a big stand, Audley Travel, Discover the World, Freedom Destinations, NZ in depth, Travel Essence, Silver Fern Holidays, Cox and Kings, Roundabout NZ, and Distant Journeys were all there representing New Zealand and/or Australia. Great to catch up with some of the staff at the show and to remind them about ……….
Unite Pacific travel trade show https://www.unitepromotions.co.uk/events/unite-pacific-australasia/ This was trade only. Great to see so many suppliers up from New Zealand and very well attended by UK/EU product managers.
March and April:
Two trips around Europe coming up. Germany, Switzerland, and Denmark combined with ITB travel show in Berlin in early March to see key agents. Then another trip in April with Tourism Australia and the regions seeing and training agents in Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Sweden.
Travel shows:
ITB in Berlin https://asp.itb.com/en/home/