Saga has seen a year on year growth of sales through travel agents of more than 30%, with the growth in its cruise business sold through the trade rising 80%.
The over-55s specialist only began selling via agents four years ago and put the “significant” growth through the channel down to structural changes and a rise in demand for long-haul touring.
Iain Powell was appointed head of trade sales in late 2017, and the operator’s holidays and cruise regional sales teams were merged earlier this year.
Trade sales formed 11% of Saga’s holidays business and 7% of cruise in 2017.
Head of trade sales Iain Powell said: “I’m incredibly excited by the results we are seeing through the trade. We’ve spoken at length around the importance of travel agents in growing our business and the support we’ve received has been quite overwhelming. We will continue to invest in this channel and have lots of exciting developments planned in the remainder of 2018 and into next year”.
Head of long-haul product Joe Sutcliffe added: “We’ve released lots of new and exciting products in the last few months, many of which form part of our new brochure, so I’m not surprised there is significant customer interest. Travel agents are experts at matching customers to the right holiday and so far they’ve done an incredible job for us at Saga.”