Prosperous lates will be hugely important this year

We travel agents can often be divided into two camps when it comes to the lates season. Some love the thrill of a late-booking enquiry, while others almost go into hibernation. 

I’m a firm believer that a late booking should always be top of agents’ priority list – and I feel this is especially true this year, with trading in recent weeks impacted by the ongoing situation in the Middle East.

While the crisis is still very much front and centre of our minds, it is important that we as an industry do our best to keep facing forward and identify opportunities to capitalise on opportunities to grow our sales as best we can. Lates is certainly one such opportunity – and while consumer confidence among travellers to the Gulf region will likely be dented as a result of recent events, there will be plenty of availability elsewhere.

One of the biggest barriers to a prosperous lates is speed. Diligent travel experts tend to spend so long and go into so much detail on a complex or early-booking enquiry that providing speedy service for a lates enquiry can be a real challenge. Overthinking is one of the key factors and means it will take longer to get options over to clients. 

Lates is all about asking the right questions then using speed to find something suitable to suggest to your clients. Travel agents often lose late bookings because they think they are asking enough questions but in reality aren’t digging deep enough at the enquiry stage. 

During lates, you need to up your game when it comes to your questioning techniques – establish what flexibility the customer has at the very start of the process.

 
Another challenge is availability. Everything is live; prices are dynamic. So, we do lots of work and present the ‘available’ holiday options, only to discover that the customer can’t book until next week. But next week will mean everything has changed in terms of availability and price. 

To avoid this unnecessary work (and stress) just ask, ‘If I find you the right deal today, are you ready to book?’ If they aren’t, take down their details and start looking when they’ve confirmed they are in a position to commit if you find something suitable.   

Always be searching

Where to look? Who has the best deals? What is a good deal? They seem like simple enough questions, or are they? Those travel experts who love lates know the answers to these questions immediately because they are searching for deals for clients, for social media posts or just keeping up to date with availability in downtime. The more you keep abreast of the offers out there, the more you will start to know what a great deal looks like. 

Booking lates for many agents, especially homeworkers, can be a quick source of income as clients will be travelling within six weeks, which means commission will be fully earned sooner and the risk of cancellation is far lower.

Tips for lates success for travel agents

I asked our top-10 homeworkers to give me their top tips for lates, which I’ve listed here:

• Keep a list of clients looking for deals and keep checking in with them all the time until you find something suitable.
• Show the savings by costing the holiday for next year so that clients are aware of what a great deal they are getting.
• Always be available – lates sales take dedication, so some things won’t wait until tomorrow.
• Always throw in a wildcard – it might not be on your client’s list but you know it is a great deal.
• It’s not always about the cheapest. Not everyone is looking for a bargain, some want better rooms etc, so be sure to ask questions.
• Promote offers online that are not easy to find – consider using smaller, less well-known suppliers rather than just the bigger ones.
• As lates is such a competitive and quick market, if you lose the odd booking (which you will), just move on and don’t let it put you off.
• Use filters on supplier sites to help you narrow down options more quickly.
• Try to speak to the client before doing any work to build that personal relationship where you can talk about availability and fluid costs – also giving you an opportunity to create the sense of urgency that makes conversions much better

In this period there will be lots of availability, so my advice is to get yourself prepared and learn to love completing those lates bookings.