Fred Olsen Travel has opened its 17th and 18th shops, including a new store in the terminal building of Norwich Airport.
The 18th branch is located in a similar location in the departure hall to former agency Travel Norwich Airport and will trade under that brand after Fred Olsen bought the name and database following its closure in July 2020.
Speaking at the official opening of Fred Olsen Travel’s 17th shop in Heathfield, East Sussex, head of commercial Paul Hardwick said many former customers had already returned to the airport store in its new location.
Hardwick has promoted an existing Fred Olsen advisor to manage the store and has appointed another employee, returning from maternity leave, to look after sales and product, creating packages with flights from Norwich for the branch to sell.
He said the new store had sold the first of these packages, a Caribbean cruise on Star Clippers’ flagship Royal Clipper, last week.
Hardwick said regional departures were proving popular and he is hoping to win back customers who used to book in the former Travel Norwich Airport store, as well as attracting new ones.
He said the first consumer show held at the airport was the agency’s most successful ever, having attracted 300 consumers, and added: “We took more bookings on the day than ever before – 22 in total and all bar one were from new customers.”
Hardwick was one of a number of Fred Olsen executives at the official opening of the Heathfield store, with managing director Steve Williams, branch manager Trevor Ridler and non-executive director Ian Brooks also in attendance.
They were joined by representatives from supplier partners and touring and adventure trade association Atas, in addition to members of the local chamber of commerce.
Travel Weekly editor-in-chief Lucy Huxley was invited to attend and cut the ribbon.
Hardwick said trading across the group was not only picking up but being sustained.
“There’s consistency now in our sales. We are still slightly down on pre-pandemic levels, but not massively. We were about 30% down on Friday and Saturday because of Storm Eunice, but in general, things are looking so much better,” he said.
“The great thing is that people are spending more. The average booking value across the network is £5,000, which is up £1,400 on pre-pandemic levels. People have been sitting on their cash and now everything they book, they are wanting to do it slightly better.”