Homeworking group The Personal Travel Agents at Co-operative Travel has reported its highest ever peak booking period with sales of more than £10 million in the six weeks after Christmas.
The group, which has 160 homeworkers on its books, said it was the most successful sales period in its seven-year history and was 5% up on the same period in 2018. Sales generated via social media grew 20%.
In January, the homeworking division of Midcounties Co-operative Travel, reached £50 million of sales for its 2018-19 financial year.
The seven days from January 7 was its highest-ever week of sales and January 8 was the best sales day the group has ever had.
Sheena Whittle, head of The Personal Travel Agents at Co-operative Travel said: “We’re thrilled to have achieved £50 million sales – a major milestone in our business’ young history. We’re also delighted with how our homeworkers have performed during a challenging peak period that’s been dominated by political headlines which have caused uncertainty amongst some consumers.”
“We worked hard in the run up to the peak booking period to ensure our homeworkers were prepared and had a strategy in place and we are pleased to see a rise of five per cent compared with the 2018 peak.”
Whittle said PTAs had been offered a training module on digital communication called Typers not Talkers, helping them to handle enquiries via digital live chat such as Facebook messages which she said “requires a different skill set from traditional phone and face-to-face conversations”.
“We wanted to ensure our homeworkers were ready to maximise on the opportunity that social media sales presents,” added Whittle. “The training has really paid off, as we’ve seen sales generated via social media rise by 20% in the six-week period since Christmas, compared with the same period last year.”