{"id":6619,"date":"2019-01-23T07:41:08","date_gmt":"2019-01-23T07:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/personal-travel-agents-boost-holiday-bookings\/"},"modified":"2019-01-23T07:41:08","modified_gmt":"2019-01-23T07:41:08","slug":"personal-travel-agents-boost-holiday-bookings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/personal-travel-agents-boost-holiday-bookings\/","title":{"rendered":"Personal travel agents boost holiday bookings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div property=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width lead\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-image-replace\" alt=\"Mauritius beach\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/D818\/production\/_105302355_d8f53792-6cda-4f77-ad4a-516d5290602a.jpg\" width=\"976\" height=\"600\"\/><span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    Customers are opting for luxury destinations like Mauritius as well as those closer to home<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">The British holidaymaker is back in fine fettle with a January jump in bookings for the summer.<\/p>\n<p>Helping sales is a growing army of 2,000 personal travel agents who work from home and visit clients whenever convenient.<\/p>\n<p>Worries about a Brexit effect on travel and the economy caused a lull over Christmas, but the vital New Year selling season is off to a rapid start.<\/p>\n<p>Bookings so far for May to October are up 5% versus the same period last year.<\/p>\n<p>Michelle Tolton, from the village of Rothley, near Leicester, sells holidays in clients&#8217; houses, over the phone and via Facebook.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s going well this year,&#8221; she says, &#8220;People are booking early. They want to escape the doom and gloom.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-46095038\" class=\"story-body__link\">Brexit worries &#8216;hit Channel ferry bookings&#8217;<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-43669007\" class=\"story-body__link\">Holidaymakers warned over fake bookings<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;I do all the legwork because they have busy lives.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Visiting a local customer, Kate Newman, the talk is about a holiday for 16 members of her family to one of this year&#8217;s most popular destinations.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re still thinking of Turkey &#8211; you get more for your money,&#8221; Kate explains.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                 <span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    Tourist demand for Egypt is up this year<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Michelle is well on her way to her target of a hundred bookings for the year.<\/p>\n<p>Many are to Europe, but she has also sold trips to see gorillas and luxury jaunts to Mauritius and Australia.<\/p>\n<p>The last two weeks have been a crucial period for the travel industry, after pre-Christmas speculation that people would be advised not to book trips for fear of a no-deal Brexit.<\/p>\n<p>But the New Year has been even busier than usual, according to the latest figures from the market specialists GfK Travel Insights.<\/p>\n<p>Non-EU destinations are up 19% compared with last year. That includes Turkey, but also Egypt and Tunisia.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">Fewer mini-breaks?<\/h2>\n<p>The typical spend is higher as well, with the average selling price per person up slightly to \u00a3982.<\/p>\n<p>The travel agents group, ABTA, says its surveys show that 38% of holidaymakers plan to spend the same as last year and 27% intend to spend more.<\/p>\n<p>Alistair Rowland of Co-operative Travel believes some customers could be cutting back on mini-breaks and allocating more cash to their main holiday.<\/p>\n<p>And he believes they are not being distracted by concerns about the UK leaving the EU.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think if anything people are so tired of Brexit, and they are used to their pound buying less,&#8221; he says.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They are not willing to give up their main holiday of the year and they&#8217;re willing to invest in it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Travel shops are under pressure as more travellers buy over the internet.<\/p>\n<p>But industry insiders expect the new breed of Personal Travel Agents will lead the fightback.<\/p>\n<p>There could be a thousand more of them over the next few years, working from their kitchens and encouraging us to book early and book often.<\/p>\n<p>Even this year, though, there are still plenty of would-be holidaymakers who prefer to bide their time and hold out for a bargain later on.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-46967143\">Source<\/a> by <a href=\"\">[author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Customers are opting for luxury destinations like Mauritius as well as those closer to home The British holidaymaker is back in fine fettle with a January jump in bookings for the summer. Helping sales is a growing army of 2,000 personal travel agents who work from home and visit &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}