Gold Medal Travel is poised to launch an agent promotion similar to this year’s successful Golden Ticket scheme.
Speaking at the Elite conference in Bournemouth at the weekend, Gold Medal sales development manager for the Midlands Kym O’Brien said the three-and-a-half-month promotion, which cost Gold Medal £250,000 and allowed agents to win places on a Dubai fam trip, led to a 100%-plus boost in sales to the destination. This is despite the fact that the overall market to Dubai is down 25% this year, she added.
“Agents were suffering as well and we wanted to put some fun back in to the industry. That’s why we took 40 agents to Dubai in September,” she said.
Although plans for the promotion have to be finalised, she said the operator will be launching a marketing campaign to coincide with the forthcoming post-Christmas peaks campaign. “We’re coming towards the end of the financial year, so everything is in place for the peaks market. We’ve got some good marketing campaigns.
“The peaks market is still perceived as being as important for agents as it is for operators. We do our biggest chunk of business in that period, so it is important.”
O’Brien added that following the operator’s acquisition by Thomas Cook last year, Gold Medal is adding 15,000 hotels to its agent-bookable website. It is also hoped an update to the system, which will see agents receive a single invoice when booking multiple products, will be in place by the end of this month.