Regional agency Dawson & Sanderson highlighted a long-standing commitment to the high street as it reported “buoyant” annual profits.
The company, which has 20 branches in Tyneside, Cumbria and Yorkshire, reported a 1.4% reduction in pre-tax profits for the 12 months to the end of February to £891,936.
However, turnover increased from £9.6 million to £10.4 million year-on-year, according to latest accounts filed with Companies House.
Dawson & Sanderson said it maintained a high rate of repeat business and new clients who “following uncertainty during Covid, sought to place travel bookings with a trusted and long-established business holding a high street presence”.
Sales across the company’s branch network continued to be strong with “notably high value package holidays”, including long-haul and cruise.
A “marked increase” in cruise sales saw the proportion rise to 12% of all travel booked during the past year.
This “provided the opportunity to meet cruise Iines’ sales targets and override commission earnings, boosting overall revenue and profitability in this area”.
Director David Chambers, grandson of company founder Tom Dawson, who died in September aged 92, reported in the 2023-24 annual accounts: “The travel industry experienced slower booking levels during what is historically the peak booking months of January and February, driven by our operators pricing their family holidays higher than expected.
“Coupled with the rising cost of living, family booking levels were lower than predicted during these months.
“The company’s overall profitability, however, remained buoyant since the customer demographic was more resilient and high value travel reservations continued to be strong.
“To maintain market share and provide the expertise that these specialised types of travel bookings demand, our recently appointed training and development manager launched training initiatives for sales staff that included dedicated cruise line, country and product training, thus ensuring the skills set within our teams continued to receive excellent reviews on external review sites and our level of repeat clients and recommendations continues to grow.”
The accounts highlight a “longstanding commitment” to the high street.
“While we plan to further develop our high street presence, we seek to improve the siting of our stores to higher footfall locations and improve our brand image with a concept store appearance, moving our South Shields brand to a more prominent position,” Chambers said.
“The conceptional appearance will form the blueprint for refurbishments of our existing branch network and, in the future, any new store locations.”
The company is also developing improved data analysis for market research and development purposes following there implementation of a new booking system in 2023.