Hays Travel IG members are outperforming the market, but were warned that trading is tough and is likely to remain so for some time to come.
John Hays, the group’s founder, told members of the travel agency consortium at its annual conference in Birmingham today that the group was getting stronger as others struggle.
He said the economic outlook had deteriorated since the Hays overseas conference in Barcelona last November and that the first quarter of 2011 had been difficult, particularly March.
However, Hays said the figures show members who have been trading with the group for two years or more have made 6% more commission to the 12 months to the end of March compared to the comparable period the previous year.
A sign of how tough things are is that that figure is down from 8% last November, but figures showed while passenger numbers are down average selling prices and average amount of commission made per passenger was going up.
“While it may be difficult to get people through the door or to our websites the customers we do get are spending more and we are making more money from them,” Hays said.
Hays added part of the reason for this performance was the commercial relations with the big two Tui Travel and Thomas Cook with whom he said the group has the best commercial terms in its history.
“Tui and Thomas Cook are really happy to offer us these terms because we are delivering back for them. At the minute we are doing really, really well,” Hays said.
Like for like Hays Independence Group figures show they were up in terms of turnover by 7% in January against the same month in 2010 and up 3% for commission.
Respectively these figures were down 2% in February and 4% in March and 1% down in February and 4% down in March.
However, Hays said: “As a group we are doing a lot better than our competitors and the overall market, but the market is tough.”
Quoting OECD figures Hays said the latest economic trends suggest the UK economy will not recover back to pre-recession levels until 2013.
“People do not have the disposable incomes, they do not have the money to book holidays,” said Hays, who predicted a drawn-out bathtub-shaped recession at the beginning of the downturn.