Jet2holidays’ head of trade says agents should sell more add-on ‘essentials’ to compensate for the loss in revenue from credit card surcharges.
Speaking at the operator’s Partnerships2Success conference in Tenerife, Alan Cross said many agents struggle selling extras – perhaps because of fear of closing a sale by upping the overall price of the holiday.
But speaking to Travel Weekly, he said the conversion rates of essentials in Jet2holidays’ call centre was significantly higher, and said that was because it was sold with confidence.
“We know it works, because it does in our call centres,” he said. “Giving agents the training will very quickly help them sell more.”
Essentials on Jet2holidays’ website include car hire, travel insurance, airport car parking, transfers, extra baggage allowance and reserved seating.
Jet2holidays has paid out £684,000 in commission to agents on assigned seats and in-flight meals so far this year, but Cross said agents missed out on a further £400,000 by not consistently selling those products.
Surcharges for using credit cards will be banned as of January 13, 2018.
Some tour operators have pledged to up commission to offset the lack of revenue from credit card fees, but Cross said Jet2holidays doing so would affect the overall price and put holidaymakers off booking altogether.
Jet2holidays ditched card fees on its own website, which Cross said was a business decision taken as the company was aware of the incoming ban and wanted to be ahead of the curve.