USAirtours targets 20% growth as trade technology expands

USAirtours’ new chief revenue officer has outlined plans to take the business “to the next level” over the coming years, as he hailed the success of a standalone cruise brand that has seen bookings increase by more than 50%.

Jaymin Patel joined the destination specialist operator from the finance industry in October as a consultant on future growth and took up the role in April.

Patel said the company was targeting “pretty ambitious” 20% year-on-year sales growth to ensure it was “around and successful for the next 45 years”.

He said a key priority was rolling out a new online “look it, book it tool” beyond an initial test group to make it easier for agents to book with the operator, with a particular focus on homeworkers who may make bookings outside of call centre hours.

Patel said: “People have a brilliant experience when they ring the call centre, but increasingly with how the world is going, it’s becoming 24-7.

“We developed our online ‘look it, book it’ tool which I think is going to be really powerful with first-in-class technology that is easy-to-use and a really exciting step for us.”

The operator has also launched its villa collection online with live availability to create “a better sales process”, and “cleaned up” its customer data to more accurately see enquiry and booing trends.

Further priorities include getting feedback from existing partner head offices on what they need, developing technology to help with closing sales and enhancing in-house training for products such as cruise, where sales have been exceeding expectations.

USAirtours launched a “one-stop shop” cruise brand, Beyond Cruising, last October, and Patel said had resulted in cruise bookings increasing by 54% year on year.

“We did not realise the power of Beyond Cruising when we launched it,” he said. “We have always sold cruising, but the name USAirtours can be limiting, so Beyond Cruising gets out the global nature of our proposition.”

He said Japan cruises have proved “very popular” and the operator was focusing on being able to package out-of-date range cruises with multi-centre itineraries.