Travel agents have been Virgin Atlantic’s biggest sales channel over the last 18 months, its vice president of global sales has revealed.
Lee Haslett told a Travel Weekly webcast the trade has been “by far” its busiest sales channel as he hailed the airline’s relationships with agents.
“Let me take this moment just to say a massive thank you to all of our travel trade partners,” he said.
“We have been overwhelmed with the level of support that we’ve had in the last 18 months. By far, our biggest sales channel is our is our trade channel.
“We hope that everyone can see that we are fully committed to travel agents, and fully committed to the travel trade.
“We’ve been, I believe, more active in the last year, 18 months than we’d probably have in the previous few years – and we know how important travel agents are certainly when there’s uncertainness for a customer to travel where we’re really starting to see those kind of green shoots of recovery.”
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He said agents had a “phenomenal” ability to retain bookings rather than see their customer cancel.
“Generally consumers at the moment are moving to where they believe it’s safe to travel, as well as based on the government traffic light system,” explained Haslett. “So as soon as a country changes from amber to green, you’ll see a big rush of bookings pretty quickly.”
He reported a combination of sales “really far out or it’s really close in”.
“August is trading well, September is trading well. I expect as we head into post the school holidays into September, which is traditionally a key booking period, we’ll see some pretty good sales for the Caribbean into the winter months of October half term and December.
“Then you’ve got a big chunk of business further out. We’re still seeing the likes of February half term and then into Easter selling very well for your traditional leisure destinations like Orlando and some of those Caribbean destinations.”